''»X-^Kv 



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2Kd COrV, 




LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

VS^^3-j 

Chap. Copyright No. 

Shelf_.!Jiii54:,h-2>-' 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



898 



MARIiE COROLLA. 



BY THE SAME AUTHOR. 

Passion Flowers. Poems by Father 
Edmund of the Heart of Mary, C.P. 
Bound uniform in style with '* Mariae 
Corolla." $1.25. 




THE AUTHOR 
AS A PAULIST MISSIONARY, IN MIS FIRST YEAR OF PRIESTHOOD, 






MARIiE COROLLA 



A WREATH FOR OUR LADT 



FATHER EDMUND OF THE H^RT OF MARY, C.P. 

[BENJAMIN D.^'hILL] 

Author of " Passion Flowers," '* A Short Cut to the True 

Church," "The Voice of the Good Shepherd : 

Does It Live ? And Where ? ' ' 



NEW YORK, CINCINNATI, CHICAGO 

BENZIGER BROTHERS 

PRINTEKS TO THE HOLY APOSTOLIC SEE 
1898 






?0ObD 



Copyright, 1898, 
By BENZIGER BROTHERS 




\^^^%^^ 



r^ . 



r 



I am the Mother of fair love, and of fear, and of 
knowledge, and of holy hope. e^,^,lus. xx'w, 24. 

All good things came to me together with her. 

WISDOM, vii. II. 



PREFACE 

I. In choosing the Latin title " Mariae Co- 
rolla " for this second volume of my poems, I 
am thinking of a book called " Sabrinae Corolla," 
with which are associated pleasant memories of 
my last school — Shrewsbury. 

"Sabrina" is the classical name for the river 
Severn. Readers of Milton will at once remem- 
ber that exquisite apostrophe in Comus^ which 
invokes Sabrina as a goddess : — 

"Sabrina fair. 

Listen where thou art sitting 
Under the glassy, cool, translucent wave. 

In twisted braids of lilies knitting 
The loose train of thy amber- dropping hair ! 
Usten for dear honoris sake. 
Goddess of the silver lake. 
Listen and save ! ** 

" Sabrinae Corolla " (corolla being a diminutive 
of corona) was a collection of some of the best 
verses by the pupils of Shrewsbury school : 

5 



6 Preface 

verses both Latin and Greek, and all of them 
translations from passages of English verse. 
Among the most skilful contributors was one 
who afterwards became Head Master, and in 
whose Sixth Form I was privileged to sit — 
that brilliant scholar and perfect Christian 
gentleman. Dr. Benjamin Hall Kennedy. 

2. In laying this wreath at the feet of Our 
Blessed Lady, I am well aware that it is very 
far indeed from deserving her gracious notice : 
but I am encouraged by the assurance that she 
deigns to accept even the poorest performance 
which is offered out of love. 

With regard to the devotion manifested in 
these pages, I have no fear of any true Catholic 
misunderstanding it or calling it presumptuous. 
Some degree of devotion to the Blessed Virgin 
forms an integral part of the life of all faithful 
Catholics : and they know that, while admitted 
to a tender familiarity with her who is our 
Mother as well as our Qiieen, it is impossible for 
us to forget that she is God's Mother first, and 
Queen of angels and of saints. Then, again, 
they cannot blame me for upholding Our Lady 



Preface 7 

as a peerless ideal for that chivalrous love and 
service which is specially the privilege of men 
who are called to the priesthood or to the re- 
ligious state, but is open to all Catholic man- 
hood. 

3. To my non-Catholic readers, on the other 
hand, I wish to show how reasonable a thing 
this devotion is, as ministering to a need in the 
human heart, which certainly ought to find 
satisfaction in a religion which claims to come 
from the God who made that heart, and who 
has taken it Himself. The poem " Stella 
Matutina : or, A Poet's Quest " is specially 
designed to make this clear. But it shall have 
a little preface of its own. 

4. I remember hearing the remark, while I 
was still an Anglican, that converts to the faith 
of Rome are apt to become very fervent clients 
of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and even to go to 
excess in this devotion. 

As to " going to excess," I deny that to be 
possible — within the lines of truth. But if 
converts do take such a hold on what has been 



8 Preface 

to them a "hidden treasure" for years, it is 
because they wish to make up for lost time — 
and also, perhaps, to atone for hard and mis- 
chievous things said against this devotion in 
their ignorant past. 

I refer to the last chapter of my " Short Cut 
to the True Church" any reader who wishes to 
see how Our Lord has made Himself responsible 
for the position of His Blessed Mother in the 
religion of Catholics. 

5. Let me add that the distinguished convert 
Mr. Orby Shipley, of London, has done me 
the honor to select some of the sonnets in this 
volume for his admirable " Carmina Mariana." 

St. Mary's Retreat, Dunkirk, N.Y. 
August, 1898. 



CONTENTS 

Part I 
From 1868 to 1878 

PAGE 

TO A FAVORITE MADONNA 1 5 

HER NATIVITY l6 

SUPER OMNES SPECIOSA . . . . .I? 

SANCTA MARIA I9 

LILIUM INTER SPINAS I9 

CHRISTMAS 21 

ON A PICTURE OF NAZARETH .... 23 

TAKEN IN 25 

SANCTA DEI GENITRIX 26 

SANCTA VIRGO VIRGINUM 2/ 

MATER CHRISTI 28 

OUR lady's EASTER 29 

DEVOTA 30 

TO THE SAME 3I 

A SOUTHERN FLOWER 32 

OUR lady's COUNCIL 33 

AFTER THE COUNCIL 39 

9 



lo Contents 

PAGE 

THE BETTER CHRISTMAS 45 

ORDINANDUS 47 

TO ST. JOSEPH ON THE DAY OF MY FIRST MASS 49 

HOLY THURSDAY LADY-DAY .... 50 

A PETITION 51 

LAST FIRST 52 

TO BE FORGIVEN 53 

REQUIES MEA 54 

NON TIMEBIS A TIMORE NOCTURNO . . • 55 

UNDER A CLOUD 56 

SPES AGONIZANTIUM 57 

PER VINCULA LIBER 58 

O VALDE DECORA ! 59 

THE LADY OF THE LAKE 60 

NEVERMORE 62 

PULCHRA UT LUNA 63 

HER LOVE 64 

ASSUMPTA 65 

THE THREE EDENS 67 

SECOND EVE 68 

IDEAL — REAL 69 

INVIOLATA 70 

IMMACULATA 7 1 

TOTA PULCHRA 7I 

A LESSON 72 

ANOTHER 73. 



Contents 1 1 

PAGE 

A truant's return 74 

MAY 75 

the espousals of our lady .... 76 

on the feast of the purification . . 81 

the smile 82 

NOT YET 83 

IN CORDE JESU 84 

Part II 

From 1880 to i8p8 

THE TEMPTATION 89 

VIA IMMACULATA 93 

A CORDE MARI^ 95 

AT HOME 98 

TO FLORENCE 99 

TO MY SISTER AMY 102 

THE WREATH AND THE FLOWER . . . I04 

TWO FLOWERS IO7 

VIRGO FIDELIS I09 

TO MY SISTER AMY BECOME A CATHOLIC. . HO 

TO THE AUTHOR OF " SHE " . . . • 113 

TO MY SISTER CONSTANCE . . . . II9 

THE ROSARY 122 

A FAREWELL I23 



1 2 Contents 

PAGE 

COMMEMORATIVE OF DECEMBER 1 8, 1 889 . . I26 

ENGLAND REVISITED 12^ 

PUER NATUS EST NOBIS I30 

OUR LADY OF THE HOLY SOULS . . . I32 

TO LEO XIII 134 

TO CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS . . . . I36 

NOTRE DAME I39 

REST BY THE WAY I44 

ON A PICTURE OF OUR LADY OF GOOD COUNSEL I45 

TO THE LADY OF MY LOVE . . . . I46 

ARGENTINA 1 48 

OUR lady's VANGUARD I50 

THE ANNUNCIATION 1 52 

THE VISITATION 1 56 

ALMA REDEMPTORIS MATER . . . . I58 

TO OUR LADY OF PROMPT SUCCOR . . • 159 

PER MARIAM 161 

STELLA MATUTINA 

Or, a Poet's Quest 

introduction 1 67 

POEM 17a 



PART I 

From 1868 to 1878 



TO A FAVORITE MADONNA 



T ADY MARY, throne of grace, 

Imaged with thy Child before me: 
Softly beams the perfect face. 

Fragrant breathes its pureness o'er me. 



I but gaze, and all my soul 

Thrills as with a taste of heaven 

Passion owns the sweet control ; 
Peace assures of sin forgiven. 

Ah ! then, what thy loveliness 
Where it shines divinely real, 

If its strength has such excess, 
Feebly shadowM in ideal ! 

In thine arms thy royal Son 

Waits to fill us past our needing: 

Hears for all, denied to none. 
Thy resistless whisper pleading. 
IS 



1 6 Her Nativity 

Dream, say they, for poet's eye ? 

Thou a dream ! Then truth is seeming. 
Only let me live and die 

Safely lost in such a dreaming ! 
1868. 



HER NATIVITY 

" Orietur Stella ex Jacob. " 1 — Numb. xxiv. 17. 

QTAR of the Morning, how still was thy 
shining 

When its young splendor arose on the sea ! 
Only the angels, the secret divining, 

Hailed the long-promised, the chosen, in thee. 

Sad were the fallen, and vainly dissembled 
Fears of the Woman in Eden foretold : 

Darkly they guessed, as believing they trembled, 
Who was the gem for the casket ^ of gold. 

Tho' the deep heart of the nations forsaken 
Beat with a sense of deliverance nigh ; 

1 "A star shall rise out of Jacob." 

2 "Thou art the casket where the jewel lay." — George Herbert. 



Super Omnes Speciosa 17 

True to a hope, thro' the ages unshaken, 

Looked for the " day-spring " to break " from 
on high " ; 

Thee they perceived not, the pledge of redemp- 
tion — 

Hidden like thought, tho' no longer afar; 
Not tho' the light of a peerless exemption 

Beamed in thy rising. Immaculate Star ! 

All in the twilight so modestly shining 

Dawned thy young beauty, sweet Star of the 
Sea! 

Only the angels, the secret divining. 

Hailed the elected, " the Virgin," 1 in thee. 



SUPER OMNES SPECIOSA2 

TS any face that I have seen — 

Some perfect type of girlhood's face ? 
Some nun's, soul-radiant, full of grace ? 

Like thine, my beautiful, my Queen ? 

1 Is. vii. 14. ri Uape^pos. — LXX. 

2 *' Beautiful above all." — Antiphon. 



1 8 Super Omnes Speciosa 

Of all the eyes have paused on mine — 
And these have met some v^^ondrous eyes, 
So large and deep, so chaste and wise — 

Have any faintly imaged thine? 



The chisel with the brush has vied 
Till each seems victor in its turn 5 
And love is ever quick to learn, 

Nor throws the profFer'd page aside : 

Yet ^ew the glimpses it has caught : 
For thou transcendest all that art 
Can show thee — even to the heart 

Most skill'd to read the poet's thought. 

That thought can pierce its native sky 
Beyond the artist's starry guess : 
But all that it may dare express 

Is thro' the worship of a sigh. 

To set the music of thy face 

To earthly measure, were to give 
Th' informing soul, and make it live 

As there — God's uttermost of grace. 



Sancta Maria 



SANCTA MARIA 



OWEET name of Mary, name of names, 
save One — 

And that, my Queen, so wedded unto thine 

Our hearts hear both in either, and enshrine 
Instinctively the Mother with the Son — 
The lisping child's new accent has begun, [youth 

Heaven-taught, with thee : first-fervent happy 

Makes thee the watchword of its maiden truth ; 
Repentant age the hope of the undone. 
To me, known late but timely, thou hast been 

The noonday freshness of a wooded height ; 

A vale of soothing waters ; the delight 
Of fadeless verdure in a desert scene. 
And when at last, my day shall set serene, 

Be Hesper i to an eve without a night. 



LILIUM INTER SPINAS 2 

/^ FOUND at last — and not too late! 

O found, and never to be lost ! 
(Can death divide us at its gate ? 

Change blight us with its frost ?) 

* The evening star. * " A lily among thorns." — Cant. ii. a. 



20 Lilium Inter Spinas 

O found at last, forgive, forgive, 

This self-deceiving heart of mine, 
That, knowing thee, it dared to live 
For other love than thine! 

Eve's fairest daughters share her doom. 

Save thee, of sin, decay, and death : 
Their beauty ripens for the tomb. 
Or fleets too soon for breath. 

And some may prove, that guileless are, 

But sirens of a perilous flood : 
While thou dost lead us, Hke a star, 
Thro' pureness up to God. 

O found at last — unhoped ideal! 

Thy poet's heart must live in thee; 
Or gasp and wither for the real, 
And roam a shoreless sea! 

1868. 



Christmas 21 

CHRISTMAS 

(~^ OD an infant — born to-day ! 
^"^ Born to live, to die, for me ! 
Bow, my soul : adoring say, 

" Lord, I live, I die, for Thee." 
Humble then, but fearless, rise ; 
Seek the manger where He lies. 

Tread with awe the solemn ground. 

Tho' a stable mean and rude. 
Wondering angels all around 

Throng the seeming solitude : 
Swelling anthems, as on high. 
Hail a second Trinity.^ 

'Neath the cavern's ^ dim-lit shade 
Meekly sleeps a tender form. 

God on bed of straw is laid ! 

Breaths of cattle keep Him warm ! 

King of glory, can it be 

Thou art thus for love of me ? 



1 Jesus, Mary, and Joseph are called "the earthly Trinity.' 
* It was a cavern used for a stable. 



** Christmas 

Hail, my Jesus, Lord of might ! 

Here in tiny helpless hand 
Thy creation's infinite 

Holding like a grain of sand ! 
Hail, my Jesus — all my own : 
Mine as if but mine alone ! 

Hail, my Lady, full of grace ! 

Maiden-Mother, hail to thee ! 
Poring on the radiant face. 

Thine a voiceless ecstasy ; 
Yet, sweet Mother, let me dare 
Join the homage of thy prayer. 

Mother of God — O wondrous name I 
Bending seraphs hail thee Queen. 

Mother of God, yet still the same 
Mary thou hast ever been : 

Still so lowly, tho' so great — 

Mortal, yet Immaculate ! 

Joseph, hail — of gentlest power! 

Shadow of the Father ^ thou: 
Thine to shield in danger's hour 

1 See Faber's Betblebem. 



On a Picture of Nazareth 23 

Whom thy presence comforts now. 
Mary trusts to thee her Child ; 
He His Mother undefiled. 

Jesus, Mary, Joseph, hail ! 

Saddest year its Christmas brings : 
Comes the faith that cannot fail, 

Come the shepherds and the kings : 
Gold and myrrh and incense sweet 
Come to worship at your feet. 



ON A PICTURE OF NAZARETH 

TN dreams no longer, but revealM to sight. 
Comes o'er me, like a vision after death. 
That shrine of tenderest worship, that delight 
Of loftiest contemplation — Nazareth. 

Fair-throned as when creation's King and Queen 
Abode within its walls, it looks around 

As scorning time and change; tho' these have 
been 
The ruthless masters of its hallow'd ground. 



24 On a Picture of Nazareth 

Still smiling as of old, it catches still 

As fresh a morning; basks in such a noon: 

Hears evening's voice as sweetly, softly thrill; 
In glory sleeps beneath a gushing moon. 

Still looms the Mountain of Precipitation 
In sadness o'er a vale serene and bright ; 

As when the Saviour foil'd His frenzied nation. 
Who fain had cast Him headlong from the 
height. 

And see upon the slope the very gate 

Where — spot to kiss ! — her lowly footstep 
fell, 

As daily pass'd the Maid Immaculate 
To fill her pitcher yonder at the well. 

That well! where mirror'd shone the loveliest 
face 
That ever woman wore ! 'tis there — the 
same ! 
Tho' hating Christ and Juda's banish'd race. 
The Moslems honor there the Virgin's name. 

Give thanks, my soul : give thanks that thou 
hast seen. 



Taken In 25 

Make Nazareth all a well of grace ; and pray 

To keep its taste within thee — which has been 

The strength of saints. Drink deep : and go 

thy way. 
1870. » 

TAKEN IN 

A FRAUD, an adventuress ! Well ? 
And has she not a soul to be saved ? 
Or must we be wholly depraved 
To be travelling straight for hell ? 

It will teach me a lesson, they say. 

In what ? In suspicion and doubt ? 

'Tis a lore I am better without 
While mission'd to labor and pray. 

They tell me the effort was wild. 
Was it all such a bubble of gas — 
From the daily " memento " at Mass 

To the prayer of the innocent child ? 

Suppose her predestined ? Why not ? 

No sign ? There are many as hid. 

Perhaps, what this simpleton did 
Was a mesh in a merciful plot ? 



26 Sancta Dei Genitrix ' 

But enough : for I meant it for One 
Who will pass even blunders above. 
O Mother of pitying love, 
Won't you claim this poor vi^aif — for your 
Son ? 
1871. 4 

SANCTA DEI GENITRIX 

TV/rOTHER of God ! My Queen is simply 
^^ this. 

For this elected, the eternal Mind 
Conceived her in its infinite abyss, 

With the God-Man co-type of human kind. 

And she, w^hen came the w^ondrous hour 
assigned, 
Conceiving her Conceiver, girt Him round, 

And held in her Immaculate v^omb confined 
Whom " heav'n and the heavens of heav'ns 

cannot bound." ^ 
Then brought Him forth, her little one, her own ; 

And fed her suckling at her maiden breast — 

The only pillow of His earthly rest. 
And still for evermore His dearest throne. 

1 2 Paral. ii. 6. 



Sancta yirgo Virginum 27 

O Lady ! what the worship Faith allows ? 
The Eternal calls thee Daughter, Mother, 
Spouse ! 



SANCTA VIRGO VIRGINUM 

'T^HE Mother of all mothers, yet no less 

The Virgin of all virgins ! Yea, the more : 
For 'tis from thy deific fruitfulness 

Have drawn all virgins their perennial store. 
Since virgin Eve grew mother of our loss 

Virginity was barren — until thine. 
Which bore the Fruit that in the press of the 

Cross 
Redeemed us with the virgin-making wine. ^ 

And now virginity may wed thy Son, 

Becoming thus the mother of fair deeds. 
Still, after all the glories it has won 

In following the Lamb where'er He leads, 
How peerless thine in having drawn Him down 
And brought Him forth — the virgin's Spouse 
and Crown ! 

1 Zach. ix. 17. 



28 Mater Christi 



MATER CHRISTI 

"\TOTHER of Christ — then Motherof us all. 
Mother of God made Man, of Man made 
God.i 
The thornless garden, the immaculate sod, 
Whence sprang the Adam that reversed the 

Fall. 
Mother of Christ, the Body mystical — 
Of us the members, as of Him the Head : 
Of Him our life, the first-born from the 
dead; ^ 
Of us baptized into His burial.^ 
Yes, Mother, we were truly born of thee 

On Calvary's second Eden — thou its Eve : 
Thy Dolors were our birth-pangs by the Tree 

Whereon the second Adam died to live — 
To live in us, thy promised seed to be, 
Who then his death-wound to the snake didst 
give. 

1 " Deusfactus est homo, ut homo fieret Deus." — St. Augustine. 
(God became man, that man might become God.) 

2 Col. i. 1 8. 

2 Rom. vi. 4. 



Our Lady's Easter 29 

OUR LADY'S EASTER 

QHE knelt, expectant, thro' the night, 
For He had promised. In her face 
The pure soul beaming, full of grace, 
But sorrow-tranced — a frozen light. 

But ere her eastward lattice caught 
The glimmer of the breaking day. 
No more in Joseph's garden lay 

The buried picture of her thought. 

The seal'd stone shut a void, and lo — 
The Mother and the Son had met ! 
For her a day should never set 

Had burst upon the night of woe. 

In sudden glory stood He there. 

And gently raised her to His breast : 
And on His Heart, in perfect rest. 

She poured her own — a voiceless prayer. 

Enough for her that He has died. 
And lives, to die again no more : 
The foe despoil'd, the combat o'er, 

The Victor crowned and glorified. 



30 Devota 

DEVOTA 1 

OWEET image of the One I love, 

To whom your infant years were given 
(And still the faithful colors ^ prove 
A constancy not all in heaven) : 

To me a violet near a brink, 

Far-hidden from the beaten way. 

And where but rarest flowerets drink 
A freshness from the ripples' play. 

A lily in a vale of rest. 

And where the angels know a nook 
But one shy form has ever prest — 

A poet with a poet's book. 

But poet's book has never said 

What I, O lily, find in you : 
'Twas never writ and never read. 

Though always old and always new. 

And ah, that you must change and go — 
The violet fade, the lily die ! 

1 A child of ten years and dedicated to the Blessed Virgin. 
^ Children thus dedicated have to wear white and blue for a 
jpecified time. 



To the Same 31 

Let others joy to watch you grow ; 
Let others smile : so will not L 

Yet smile I should. Is heaven a dream ? 

In sooth he needs to be forgiven, 
Who matches with the things that seem 

A deathless flower, that blooms for heaven. 

And while he mourns the onward years 

That sweep you from the things that seem. 

Let faith make sunshine on his tears : — 
'Tis heaven is real, and earth the dream. 



Y 



TO THE SAME 

OU little madonna, so very demure ! 
You draw me, yet awe me : 
As warning, half scorning. 
That kissing a face so religiously pure 
Is almost a sacrilege, I may be sure. 

Yet, awed as I am, I but love you the more. 
You meet me and greet me 
Serenely and queenly; 



32 A Southern Flower 

And image so sweetly the One I adore, 
When she was a child in the ages of yore. 

Her name it is Mary Regina — your own. 

You share it and wear it 

As flower its dower 
Of fragrance — predestined hereafter, full-blown, 
To reign with the lilies that circle her throne. 

Be fragrant for me, then, O lily ! and pray — 

Each hour, little flower, 

Exhaling availing 
Petitions — to Mary the Queen of your May, 
To breathe on my Autumn your freshness to-day. 



A SOUTHERN FLOWER 

A FLOWER of the pale, sad South, 

Yet pale nor sad is she : 

For she blooms on a wonderful tree 
That knoweth nor blight nor drouth — 

A certain miraculous tree 
Our Lady has planted down South. 



Our Lady's Council 33 

A rose let me call you, dear girl : 

A fadeless and thornless rose. 

So richly your modesty shows 
Its blushes bejewell'd with pearl — 
And a dew-drop of grace every pearl — 

That I think of the Mystical Rose. 

But the Lord of the sweet and the fair 
(For they come from His beauty alone), 
I pray Him that floweret so rare 

No hand may dare cull but His own : 

That no other bosom may wear 

This rose of the South than His own. 



T 



OUR LADY'S COUNCIL 



HERE came an hour and words ^ were 
utter'd then 
That live to-day and echo evermore. 

I St. Matt. xvi. 18. 



34 Our Lady's Council 

One spoke them to a knot of simple men, 
Who simply took the simple sense they bore : 

A promise — such as never tongue or pen 
Of sage oracular had made before ; 

And a design no wisdom could have plannM, 

Save His who holds the nations in His hand. 

II 

" Thou callest Me the Christ, the Son of God : 
And blessed art thou, Simon, son of John ! 

Thy knowledge cometh not of flesh and blood, 
But 'tis My Father's gift to thee alone. 

And I, a builder against wind and flood. 

Say, thou art Peter — rock and corner-stone, 

My second self.^ Nor shall the gates of H^ell 

O'erthrow My Church thus wisely based and 
well." 

Ill 

Had less than God so spoken, he had been 
The wildest of all dreamers. What ! to make 

A poor rude fisher — who had never seen 
A gloom upon his Galilean lake. 

But fear'd the menace of its boding mien — 

1 St. Augustine calls Saint Peter, Christ's "alter ego." 



Our Lady's Council 35 

A rock no surge should v/helm, no tempest 
shake : 
The baffled ages foaming at its feet 
The broken malice of their ceaseless beat ! 

IV 

God saith, and who shall gainsay ? Devils first ; 

Then fools, their ready dupes. To these, for- 
sooth. 
Has seem'd it ever degradation's worst, 

To own the gentle majesty of truth ; 
Since came the Church to free a world accurst, 

And heal its heartache, and renew its youth : 
A spring to thaw the universal frost — 
Fire-dower'd from her natal Pentecost. 



Error must needs inerrancy defy 

That will not cede its dear delusions breath 
(For how should truth be " liberal " to a lie. 

Nor offer God an honorable death ?) : 
And so along the ages rolls a cry — 

The din of onset at the gates of faith : 
'Tis Arius now, now Luther, heads the fray, 
Or bristles up the hydra of to-day. 



36 Our Lady's Council 

VI 

And patient Rome sits victor over all : 

Her strength in seeming feebleness increased. 

She smiles to hear "the storm against the 
wall," 1 
And lavish'd names of "harlot" and of 
" beast," 

And prophets raving of her speedy fall : 
While Satan counts his losses with at least 

The joy that such solidity of rock 

Draws none the fewer to the fatal shock. 

VII 

Press on, close in, ye gallant ranks of Hell ! 

Concentrate still the might ye think to bow. 
Stood ever holy Church, do records tell. 

More one, more conscious, more herself, than 
now ? 
The Chair of Peter when belovM so well ? 

Or when a Pontiff of serener brow ? 
He calls. Earth hears. Responsive from all 

lands, 
Around its Chief a mitred army stands ! 

1 Is. XXV. A. 



Our Lady's Council 37 

VIII 

And they who trembled, and had been con- 
tent 

To scorn with quiet mirth a voice so weak, 
Are forced, they find, to yield their panic vent. 

"Another Trent!" rings out the indignant 
shriek : 
" This nineteenth century, another Trent ! " 

'Tis not so sweet to have the Master speak 
When passion, weary of His peaceful sway, 
No longer deems it freedom to obey. 

IX 

But speak He will — the blessed words of life. 
How welcome to the soul that thirsts to 
know. 
Or views alarm'd the too successful strife 

Of earth with heaven — truth's ebb and 
error's flow ! 
We murmur thro' our tears, " Decay is rife ! 

The sound, the old, the sacred — all will go ! " 
Fond fear! Their doom let faithless thrones 

expect : 
Christ's kingdom stands : He garners His elect. 



38 Our Lady's Council 



The Serpent writhes (his last convulsions these) 
Beneath the foot that tramples his crush'd 
head. 
O Lady, worker of thy Son's decrees ! 

Thy Rome, thy Pontiff, trust thee. Deign to 
shed 
Thy gracious light, lone Star of troubled seas, 
At whose sweet ray the ancient darkness 
fled! 
The Serpent writhes beneath thee. Deign to 

show 
He is indeed the Woman's vanquish'd foe ! 

XI 

Thy Pontiff trusts thee — most of Pontiffs thine. 

For thee he calls this Council, in an hour 
Momentous. He has taught us, at the shrine 

Of thy Conception, that its peerless dower 
Of grace preventive is a truth divine. 

Put forth, O Queen, put forth thy royal 
power — 
And with a splendor all the world may see — 
To crown the Pontiff who has thus crown'd thee ! 



After the Council 39 

XII 

This day we hail thy victory, and claim 
Thy prayer omnipotent. Nor let it rise 

For us alone, that boast to love thy name ; 
But those, unhappy, that have dar'd despise. 

Who came for them, not less by thee He 
came : 
Thro' thee must break unclouded on their eyes. 

Ah, Mother's Heart ! How long, then, wilt thou 
wait 

Till all thy children sing " Immaculate " ? 

December 8, 1869. 



AFTER THE COUNCIL i 



"^XZHAT say you? "Has the Definition 
cured 
Credulity at last ? " How so, old fellow ? 

1 The following sarcastic letter may seem out of place in this 
volume. Indeed, I had intended giving it in the third. But it is 
so closely connected with "Our Lady's Council," that I think it 
will have more force if added here. It is written to an old school- 
fellow, now an Anglican parson. 



40 After the Council 

Your liver's out of sorts — your life's insured ? — 
Or else your goggles have a tinge of yellow. 

Or had the bowl too potently allured 

O'er-night, and left you the reverse of 
mellow ? 

For something was the matter when you wrote 

The string of billingsgate I scorn to quote. 

II 

But come : Til leave you room to make amends. 

For had the Council, yielding to the threats 
Of foes or promises of falser friends, 

Left the great question open (there were bets 
It would. You've lost ? A circumstance which 
lends. 

No doubt, a bilious color to regrets) — 
Then^ I acknowledge freely, then my faith 
Had sufFer'd shock to the centre ... all but 
death ! 

Ill 

When "Thou art Kepha " said th' Almighty 

Word, 
"And on this Kepha will I build My Church," 



After the Council 41 

What meant He? Peter's body and bones? 
Absurd. 
Then Peter's faith? If not, 'tis vain to 
search. 
But how the faith of Peter ? We incurred 

Together, once, the touch of Doctor Birch 
Over a passage in our Greek Delectus 
(That being judg'd the best way to correct us) : 

IV 

And you'll deserve like castigation now 

(And more than then, sir), if you fail to find 

The answer to this very simple " How ? " 

But, first, of preconceptions clear your mind : 

Next, light your pipe. 'Twill serve to smooth 
your brow 
('Tis well you're not of the non-smoking 
kind). 

And help you concentrate your mental action 

On concrete fact and Protestant abstraction. 



Ay, sapient tutors taught us to abstract 

Peter's confession from the man that made 
it: 



42 After the Council 

As though the two were not one concrete fact — 

Which they dissolv'd the better to evade it. 
But let the rock-foundation rest intact 

(" No work of flesh and blood : My Father 
laid it"); 
And ask, with me, What simpler, what com- 
pleter ? 
Peter plus Faith — and not Faith minus Peter. 

VI 

Again, the superstructure to be rear'd — 

"My Church" — What is it? Clearly, 
nothing crazy: 

No city of vapor, such as hath appeared 

To learned heads with notions vague and 
hazy : 

But something palpable ; something to be near'd 
By paths direct, and not by windings mazy ; 

Or if, at times, circuitously, still 

By those alone who walk with a good will. 

VII 

Say a society, visible, organic — 

Of teachers and of taught. An institution 



After the Council 43 

Created to withstand assaults Titanic 

As readily as onsets Liliputian. 
Daughter of peace, yet ever causing panic. 

" Not of this world," yet under contribution 
Laying " all nations," in her Founder's name, 
For unreserv'd submission to her claim. 

VIII 

Now, such a Church — remember, Fm explain- 
ing 

My own belief, and must not snap my 
tether — 
A kind of fabric is will need sustaining 

By base right sure to hold it well together. 
So, just to keep your faculties in training. 

Please ponder deeply, and inform me, whether 
This unity could balk its foes and weary 'em 
Without the sovran central " Magisterium " ? 

IX 

In briefer phrase, without the Chair of Peter — 
Without what you call the U«-Holy See ? 

I said, just now, naught simpler, naught com- 
pleter 
Than this contrivance, as it seems to me. 



44 After the Council 

And, in default of surer plan or neater, 

The fact^ I'm thinking, quite enough should 
be: 
For stubborn fact it is. If you abhor it, 
Then pray explode the words that answer for it. 



Meanwhile, leave me to be at least consistent. 

I take that promise as I find it spoken — 
By One to whom no coming age was distant ; 

Who therefore meant it for a pledge and 
token 
Of strength divine, invincibly resistant — 

A rock should steadfastly throw back, baffled, 
broken. 
The surging malice of all time. The tide 
That whelms a continent — here turns, defied. 

XI 

But what hath all this with the Definition ? 

Why, everything, in short. Too fond your 
fear 
That I should strain my powers of deglutition 

Over a dogma luminously clear. 



The Better Christmas 45 

The Pope's prerogative, by our position, 

Is not " impeccability^'^ my dear ; 
But Peter's faith — the faith that cannot fail — 
'Gainst which nor He nor tyranny prevail. 

XII 

That Peter's faith lives on in Peter's See — 
Believing, teaching, judging : — this the 
rock 

Perpetual, whereon stands firm, for me, 

The only Church may heed no skeptic's mock. 

And therefore, had " the Vatican decree " 

Not " thunder'd," my faith would have sufFer'd 
shock; 

Since Satan made, at head of ranks insurgent, 

A call for fulmination — rather urgent. 



THE BETTER CHRISTMAS 

"'npIS not the feast that changes with the 
ever-changing times. 
But these that lightly vote away the glories 
of the past — 



46 77?^ Better Christmas 

The joys that dreamlike haunt me with the 
merry matin chimes 
I loved so in my boyhood, and shall dote on 
to the last. 

" There still is much of laughter, and a measure 
of old cheer : [yore : 

The ivy wreaths, if scanty, are as verdant as of 
And still the same kind greeting for the univer- 
sal ear : 
But, to me, for all their wishing, 'tis a ' merry ' 
feast no more ! " 

I said : and came an answer from the stars to 
which I sighed — 
Those stars that lit the vigil of the favored 
shepherd band. 
And 'twas as if again the heavens opened deep 
and wide. 
And the carol of the angel-choir new-flooded 
all the land. 

"Good tidings still we bring to all who still 
have ears to hear; 
To all who love His coming — the elect that 
cannot cease : 



Ordinandus 47 

And louder rings our anthem to these watchers, 
year by year, 
Its earnest of the perfect joy — the everlast- 
ing peace. 

"Art thou, then, of these watchers, if thou 

canst not read the sign ? 

The world was at its darkest when the blessed 

Day-Star ^ shone : 

Again 'tis blacker to her beam : and thou must 

needs repine. 

And sicken so near sunrise for the moonlight 

that is gone ! " 
1874. 



ORDINANDUS 2 

Tp HE goal : and yet my heart is low. 

When rather it should brim with glee ! 
They tell me this is ever so. 
Ah, well ! I cling to One I know : 
Sweet Virgin, keep thou me. 

1 Our Lady. 

2 Just before ordination to the subdiaconate — the irrevocable 



step. 



48 Ordinandus 

O thou for whom I venture all — 

The fragile bark, the treacherous sea 
(I needs must serve my Lady's call — 
Her captive knight, her helpless thrall) — 
My pilot, keep thou me. 

From tyranny of idle fears, 

And subtle frauds to make me flee — 
Distorting unto eyes and ears 
The burden of the coming years — 
My mercy, keep thou me. 

From shirking the accepted cross, 

For all the galling that must be : 
From seeing gold in what is dross. 
And seeking gain in what is loss. 
My wisdom, keep thou me. 

From lures too strong for flesh and blood 

With show of ripe philosophy. 
That points the fallen, who had stood 
Contented with the lesser good — 
My victory, keep thou me. 

O Lady dear, in weal, in woe. 

Till heaven reveal thy Son and thee, 



To Saint Joseph 49 

Thy true love's mantle round me throw : 
And tenderly, calmly, sweetly so, 
My glory, keep thou me. 

Advent, 1870. 

♦ 

TO SAINT JOSEPH 

ON THE DAY OF MY FIRST MASS 

^ I ^YPE of the priesthood with its Virgin 
Spouse, 
The Immaculate Church, our Mother ever 
fair ! 
Since even to me God's wondrous grace allows 
An office more than seraphim may share, 
I kneel to thfee, most gentle Saint, and dare 
To choose thee patron of the trust. O make 

My evermore fidelity thy care. 
And keep me Mary's — for her own sweet 

sake ! 
Her knight before, and poet, now her priest 
(Nor less her slave : 1 a thousandfold the more), 

1 The Ven, Grignon De Montfort called his devotion the 
" Sla-very of Jesus in Mary," and himself the "slave, or bonds- 



50 Holy Thursday Lady-Day 

I glory in a bondage but increased, 

And kiss the chain her dear De Montfort 
wore, 

With " Omnia Per Mariam " mottoed o*er, 
Which seals me her apostle — tho' the least. 

Feast of the Seven Dolors, 
March 31, 1871. 



HOLY THURSDAY LADY-DAY 

" np O find, this greatest day of all the year, 
Our Lady's Mass and Office set aside ! 
My day of days — when holy Church, my 
bride. 
Gave me her hand ; her angel ^ in mine 

ear 
Announcing words of thrilling joy and fear — 
' Thou art a priest for ever : ' — to be de- 
nied '' . . . 
But, suddenly, my Queen herself replied 
(I stood at the altar, and 'twas sweet to hear) : 

man, of Mary for Jesus." Of course by **her priest" I mean her 
servant in the priesthood. 

1 The bishop (Apoc. chap. z). 



A Petition 51 

" The words 'tis thine to utter — making bread 
The Body of thy Lord, and wine His Blood — 
What do they but effect the wondrous end 
Of mine this day to Gabriel's ' Ave ' said ? ^ 
Behold His wish to be His dear ones' Food 
On thy voice now, as then on mine, de- 
pend ! " 

March 25, 1875. 



A PETITION 

T_TOW bold I grow in this new love, 

To ask thy Heart, that I may rest 
Where thy Creator-Spouse, the Dove, 
Has made His dearest, sweetest nest ! 

Full wise I ask it. Have I turn'd 
Elsewhere, 'tis only not in vain 

Because a lesson I have learn'd 

Which needs not to be taught again : 

That other home is none for me. 

Tho' many a gentle heart might prove 

1 "Ecce ancilla Domini," etc. 



52 Last First 

An isle to touch at on the sea, 

My bark were portless should I rove. 

Then let thy bosom be my home. 

And am I bold ? 'Tis mine by right ! 
Thy Son, my Brother, bids me come 

And dwell with Him there day and night. 



LAST FIRST 

\ H, had I never lov'd but thee — 

To thee my first, my only vow ! 
Tho' thou dost seem content to be 
My Dearest, my Beloved, now. 

darkness of the wasted years. 
When to invoke thy blessed name 

Was theme for school-boy scoffs and jeers ! 
For mine the loss — if not the blame. 

1 feel (unless too fondly sure) 

That, had I known thee from a child, 
Thy face had kept me true and pure. 
Since first it look'd at me and smiled. 



To Be Forgiven 53 

My eager soul " must needs have loved " 
So fair a " highest," had it " seen " : 1 

And time had made thee, as it moved, 

From boyhood's Mother manhood's Queen. 

Yet can I murmur ? Like thy Son, 
'Tis thine, O Love, to glory more 

In some frail, wounded, rescued one^ 
Than nine-and-ninety safe before. 

Thou hold'st me dearer for that past 

Where thou didst seek me at my worst : 

And knowest that, if lov'd the last. 
My last is best — and best is first. 



TO BE FORGIVEN 

T CALL thee " Love " — " my sweet, my 
dearest Love " : 

Nor feel it bold, nor fear it a deceit. 
Yet I forget not, that in realms above, 

The thrones of seraphs are beneath thy feet. 

1 "We needs must love the highest when we see it." — Ten- 
nyson. 



/ 



£L 



54' Requies Mea 

If Queen of angels thou, of hearts no less : 
And so of mine — a poet's, which must needs 

Adore to all melodious excess 

What cannot sate the rapture that it feeds. 

And then thou art my Mother: God's, yet mine! 

Of mothers, as of virgins, first and best : 
And I as tenderly, intimately thine 

As He, my Brother, carried at the breast. 

My Mother ! 'tis enough. If mine the right 
To call thee this, much more to muse and 
sigh 

All other honeyed names. A slave, I might — 
A son, I must. And both of these am I. 



REQUIES MEA 

I^EEP me, sweet Love! Thy keeping is 
"*-^ my rest. 

Not safer feels the eaglet from beneath 
The wings that roof the inaccessible nest. 
Than I when thou art near me, dearest, 
best — 



Non Timebis a Timor e Nocturno 55 

Whose love my life is, yea, my very breath ! 

Thy Son to Egypt fled to prove our faith. 
Not Herod's men had snatch'd Him from thy 
breast. 

Or changed His throned slumber into death. 
How wonderful thy keeping, mighty Queen ! 

So close, so tender : and as if thine eyes 
Had only me to watch, thine arm to screen ; 

And this inconstant heart were such a prize! 

And thou, the while, in beatific skies. 
Art reigning imperturbably serene ! 



NON TIMEBIS A TIMORE NOC- 
TURNO 1 

f^ LOVE, I pray thee guard my bed : 

And evermore, when I recline. 
From thy sweet picture at its head 
There falls a pureness which is thine. 

I feel thy shadow, and am blest : 
I know I shall not be defiled. 

1 Ps. xc. Office of Compline. "Thou shalt not be afraid 
for any terror by night. ' ' 



56 Under a Cloud 

And oh, at times I seem to rest 

On thy own bosom — like a child! 

If break my slumber, straight to thee 
My thought, in loving murmurs, flies 

As thou wert bending over me : 

And scarcely would thy face surprise. 

And should I die, what sweeter death ? 

To dream my spirit out of night — 
Thy whisper for the morning's breath. 

Thy smile to wake me into light ! 



UNDER A CLOUD 

\ H, Beloved, thou canst never 
See me wounded and defiled. 
When thy pity's least endeavor 

Needs must save thy foolish child ! 

But for thee how vain my toiling ! 

All is weakness — vileness all. 
Tyrant self the gain despoihng : 

Fresh the trial, fresh the fall. 



Spes Agoniiantium 57 

Give me, then, to feel thee near me 

When I tremble in eclipse : 
Make me sure thou still dost hear me 

When the dry heart mocks the lips. 

Love me, love me, dearest Mother ! 

"Better is thy love than wine." 
What to me were any other. 

If I knew I had not thine ? 



SPES AGONIZANTIUM 

HOU wilt come to me in death- 
Come and take me to thy Son ? 
Come before my fitful breath 
Passes and the strife is done ? 



T 



When returning fears increase ; 

When the past eclipses heaven ; 
Thou wilt come and whisper peace — 

Tell me it is all forgiven ? 

Thou wilt lend thy beauty's light 
When my darkness seeks thy face ? 



5 8 Per Vincula Liber 

Beam, and let my failing sight 

Hail thee present "full of grace"? 

When the swimming world is gone, 
When that other life is mine, 

Thou wilt take me to thy Son ? 
He will judge me but as thine ? 

Such my trust. O sweet my Love, 
Who has trusted thee and wept ? 

Choose one more, then — just to prove 
How thy promises are kept. 



PER VINCULA LIBER 1 

T ADY, my mercy ! what the prize 
^-^ You saw in me I cannot think, 
What time you " turn'd those pitying eyes' 
And snatch'd me from perdition's brink. 

I caird you not, that you should pray ; 

Nor knew you : yet the grace was won. 
You took, unask'd, your own sweet way 

To bring me captive to your Son. 

1 "By bondage free." 



Valde Decora! 59 

And now in Him I live anew : 

With His dear gifts my soul is fair : 

From His Heart comes its love of you, 
His breath the fragrance of its prayer. 

Yet, Lady, tho' I dare not doubt 

('Twere sin) your goodness or your power, 
I dread, and more than foes without. 

This self — sure traitor every hour. 

My peace that I must needs trust you. 

My safety that you trust not me. 
Be tyrannous — to keep me true : 

Load me with chains — to make me free. 



O VALDE DECORA .11 

/^OULD I but see thee, dear my Love ! 

That face — but once ! Not dazzling 

bright : 
Not as the blest above 
Behold it in God's light : 

1 " O exceedingly beautiful ! '* — Antiphon. 



6o The Lady of the Lake 

But as it look'd at La Salette; 
Or when, in Pyrenean wild, 
It beamed on Bernadette, 
The favor'd peasant child. 

Once seen — a moment — it would blind 
These eyes to beauty less than thine: 
And where could poet find 
Such theme for song as mine ? 

But if I ask what may not be. 

So spell me with thy pictur'd face, 
That haunting looks from thee 
May hold me like a grace. 



THE LADY OF THE LAKE 

\ LONE with Nature, in a round 

Of beauty 'neath a cloudless blue, 
To drink each spell of sight and sound, 
For ever old, for ever new ; 

Or, dreaming with the dreaming lake. 
That lovelier seems with every hour, 



The Lady of the Lake 6i 

To muse the noon out, half-awake, 
In shade of tent or leafy bower : 

All this had been in other years 
A joy as sweet and pure as now; 

Had moved, perhaps, forgotten tears, 
A fresher heart, a blither brow. 

Yet base were I to wish it back — 

That time the poet can recall 
As Eden lost. The scene would lack 

A dearer charm, the queen of all. 

The lake would own no Lady then : 

Or if a mortal reign'd within. 
What spoke of her would bid me ken 

The winter of the once hath been. 

But now, O Love, 'tis thou art here — 
Within, and so without. To me 

In Nature's glories thine appear : 

For God has made His world for thee. 

Lake George, August, 1871. 



62 Nevermore 

NEVERMORE 

T WATCHED, from the lake, love's planet set 

Toward the mountain's ebon bar. 
I said : " This hour the eyes are wet 
That bid adieu to their love's star. 

" It rose so fair, and shone so bright, 
A twilight spell — how swiftly o'er! 

For change the cloud, or death the night. 
That draws the murmurM ' Nevermore'! " 

But thou, thy poet's Star of love. 

Madonna ! if these eyes are wet. 
Which hail thee beautiful above, 

'Tis not that thou must pale and set. 

'Tis joy that overflows in tears 

From out a heart at perfect rest : 
With thee to rule my rescued years, 

O when was bard so deeply blest ? 

Ah, keep me true, my dearest Queen ! 

That I may sing, as none before, 
The sweetest love hath ever been, 

A star that setteth — nevermore. 

Lake George, August, 1871. 



Pulchra ut Luna 63 

PULCHRA UT LUNAi 

'T'HE moon, behind her pilot-star, 

Came up in orbed gold ; 
And slowly near'd a fleecy bar 
O'erfloating lone and cold. 

I looked again and saw an isle 

Of amber on the blue : 
So changed the cloudlet by the smile 

That softly lit it through. 

Another look, the isle was gone — 

As tho' dissolved away. 
And could it be so warmly shone 

That chaste and tender ray ? 

I said : " O star, the Faith art thou 
That brought my Hfe its Queen — 

In her sweet light no longer now 
The vapor it has been. 

*' Shine on, my Queen : and so possess 
My being to its core, 

* "Fair as the moon.*' — Cant. y\. 9. 



64 Her Love 

That self may show from less to less, 
Thy love from more to more.** 

A touch of the oars, and on we slid 

My cedar boat and I. 
The dreaming water faintly chid 

Our rudeness with a sigh. 

Lakx Gkorge, September, 1873. 



HER LOVE 

''T^IS round me with the air I breathe, 

And o'er me like the heaven above, 
And steadfast as the earth beneath — 
The mystery of Mary's love ! 

Chaste love — the truest, tenderest all 
Of mother, sister, spouse in one : 

My strength in trial and in fall. 
My glory when the strife is done : 

Chaste fire, consume my life away ! 

Burn out this self, this sensual dross, 
That clings to pleasures of a day. 

And hankers for the gain of loss ! 



"A^ 



Assumpta 65 

ASSUMPTA 



ND didst thou die, dear Mother of our Life ? 
Sin had no part in thee : then how should 
death ? 
Methinks, if aught the great tradition saith 
Could wake in loving hearts a moment's strife" 
(I said — my own with her new image rife), 
"'Twere this." And yet 'tis certain, next 

to faith. 
Thou didst lie down to render up thy breath ; 
Tho' after the Seventh Sword no meaner knife 
Could pierce that bosom. No, nor did. No 
sting 
Of pain was there, but only joy. The love 
So long thy Hfe ecstatic, and restrained 
From setting free thy soul, now gave it wing : 
Thy body, soon to reign with it above. 

Radiant and fragrant, as in trance, remained. 

II 

Yes, Mother of God, tho' thou didst stoop to die, 
Death could not mar thy beauty. On thy 
face 



66 Assumpta 

Nor time nor grief had wrinkle left or trace: 
It had but aged in God-like majesty: 
Mature, yet, save the mother in thine eye, 
As maiden-fresh, as when, of all our race, 
Thou, first and last, wast greeted " full of 
grace " — 
Ere thrice five years had worshipt and gone by. 
Mortal thy body : yet it could not know 
Mortality's decay. Like sinless Eve's, 
It waited but the change on Thabor shown. 
And when, at thy sweet will, 'twas first laid 
low. 
Untainted as a lily's folded leaves 

It slept — the angels watching by the stone. 

Ill 

" At thy sweet will." Then wherefore didst 
thou will 
To pass death's portal ? To the outward ear 
There comes no answer; but the heart can 
hear. 
Thy Son had passed it. Thou upon " the hill 
Of scorn " hadst stood beside the Cross ; and still 
Wouldst " follow the Lamb where'er He 
went." Of fear 



The Three Edens 6j 

Thou knewest naught. The cup's last drop^ 
so dear 
To Him, thy love must share — or miss its fill. 
But more. Thy other children — even we — 
Must enter life thro' death. And couldst thou 
brook 
To watch our terrors at the dark unknown, 
Powerless to stay us with a sympathy 
Better than any tender word or look — 
Bidding our steps tread firmly in thine own ? 



THE THREE EDENS 

** Ascende, Domine, in requiem tuam : 
Tu et Area sanctificationis tuae." — Ps. cxxxi. 



B 



LOOM'D the first Eden not with Man 
alone, 

But Woman, equal Woman, at his side : 
And seemly was it when, together tried. 
They fell together — for the two were one. 
On Calvary stood the Mother by the Son : 
New Eve with second Adam crucified : 
And as thro' Eve in Adam we had died. 



68 Second Eve 

Thro' Mary was our loss, in Christ, undone. 
Then how should not the Paradise regained 

Behold its Eve beside her Adam throned : 
Both risen, both ascended — unprofaned 

Each virginal body, by the grave disowned ? 
Else had our Foe his conquest half main- 
tained : 

The primal ruin been but half atoned. 

Feast of the Assumption, 1874. 



SECOND EVE 

PREDESTINED second Eve. For this con- 
ceived 
Immaculate — not lower than the first. 
Chosen beginner in the loss reversed. 
And mediatress in the gain achieved, 
When the new angel, as the old, believed 

Thy hearkening should bless whom Eve's had 

curst. 
And therefore we, whose bondage thou hast 
burst. 
Grateful for our inheritance retrieved, 
Must deem this jewel in thy diadem 



Ideal — Real 69 

The brightest : hailing thee alone " All Fair '* 
Nor ever soil'd with the original stain. 
Alone, save Him whose Heart-blood bought the 
gem 
With peerless grace preventive none might 
share — 
Redemption's perfect end, all else tho' vain. 



IDEAL — REAL 

QOLE rest, of womankind, for hearts that 
crave 
Immaculate perfection ! Only shrine 
For love that is religion — this of mine ! 
No Casta Diva Rome or Hellas gave 
To school-boy years (so prone to dream and 
rave), 
No form ideal I was wont to pine 
At finding not, nor mortal deem'd divine, 
Could sate my heart — which, hungry as the 

grave. 
Made dust of all it gorged. I knew not thee. 
A barren creed had starved me. With the 
hour 



70 Inviolata 

That brought me faith's realities, arose 
The One mine eyes were purified to see: 
And wiser manhood built itself a bower — 
A temple of all musical repose. 



INVIOLATA 

" "IXZHO hast alone Inviolate remained," * 
Sings holy Church. And I too, Lady 
sweet, 
Can find no word to murmur at thy feet 
Melodious as this — which thou hast deigned 
To hear so often from a love unfeigned. 

Ah, could my heart the tender thought re- 
peat — 
Inviolata — with its every beat, 
And pour a ceaseless worship unrestrained ! 
Inviolate soul, inviolate body, thine — 

Sin could not touch thee, nor the Tempter 
near : 
Pain no disease, and age no blemish gave: 
More virgin for thy Motherhood divine : 

^ '* Quae sola inviolata permansisti. " — Antiphon. 



Tota Pulchra 



Serene, sublime, *mid sorrows without peer : 
Beauteous in death, untainted in the grave. 



IMMACULATA 

TMMACULATE ! The very word 

Was made for thee, God's peerless love I 
The one low note by angels heard. 
As o'er thee hung the brooding Dove, 

In that still moment when thy soul 
Became its generate body's form; 

And from the Cross to grace it stole 
A ruddy gleam Redemption-warm. 

December 8, 1875. 



TOTA PULCHRAi 

y^AN God so woo us, nor, of all our race. 

Have form'd one creature for His perfect 
rest ? 
Must the Dove moan for an inviolate nest, 

1 Cant. iv. 7. 



72 A Lesson 

Nor find it ev'n in thee, O " full of grace " — 
In thee, His Spouse ? Or could the Word de- 
base 
His Godhead's pureness when He fill'd thy 

breast, 
Tho' Moses treasured up, at His behest, 
The typical Manna in a golden ^ vase ? 

Who teach that sin had ever aught in thee. 
Utter a thought the demons may not share — 
Not tho' they prompt it in their fell despair : 

For these, while sullenly hating the decree 
That shaped thee forth Immaculate, " All 
Fair," 

Adore it still — and must eternally. 



A LESSON 

T FEEL so helpless, Lady, for the good 

Thou settest me to do : so slight and faint. 
x\ll for not standing where I might have stood 
By this time — on the pathway of the saint. 

1 Ex. xvi. 33 ; Heb. ix. 4. 



Another 73 

How we forget that we are not our own ! 

Not ours the right to throw an hour away : 
No, nor a moment : nor to let alone 

One good work ofFer'd in a crowded day. 

For God may want the merit of a deed, 
To grant a grace, or turn a mercy's scale : 

And when to us this honor comes decreed. 
What shall we answer if His purpose fail ? 

For this, then, thou dost set me what demands 
A saint ? I thank thee. Yet I dare assign 

One other cause. So weak my lifted hands, 
I the more passive instrument in thine. 



ANOTHER 



V^/'ITH a pang like the pang of despair 
For one who will soon be dead — 
Soon lost to the vain, vain prayer 

Of a heart that has ached and bled — 
I turn'd from the foot of the stair 

You were calmly ascending, and fled — = 
Ay, fled — to the blessed May air 

And the evening peace o'erhead. 



74 ^ Truant's Return 

And methought, as I gazed at the West 

Yet aglow In Its sunset pride, 
" How narrow this grief, this unrest ! 

Yon heavens look scornfully wide. 
Why rack any longer my breast 

For a conquest to angels denied ? 
And must not the Good — yea, the Best — 

Still triumph, whatever betide ? " 

But here something came from the skies : 

'Twas the voice of One near tho' unseen : 
And I felt the reproach of those eyes 

Bending o'er me their tender serene. 
" For myself was I chasing the prize ? 

Or for her — as a knight for his Queen ? 
And if she tired of wills that despise. 

Where should 7, pardon'd rebel, have been ? " 



A TRUANT'S RETURN 



" A BIDE with me ! " "I need thee every 
-^ hour ! " 

As other hearts have murmur'd to thy Son, 
So mine to thee, dear Mother of my soul ! 



May 75 

I faint from battle. Thou must take 
control. 
Give me thy arm, thy Heart, to lean upon — 
My refuge from the Tempter's cruel power ! 

Wounded I moanM to her; and not in vain. 
But she made answer : "Why didst thou leave 
me? 
Didst think I cared so little for thy love 
To see withdrawn one token, and approve ? 
I counted it desertion, tho' to thee 
It seem'd thy right." " My Queen, 'tis thine 
again I " 



MAY 

npHE month of Maia — Cybele's Roman 
name — 
Ere Rome was Christ's.^ And 'twas for 
Vulcan's priest 
To kindle at her shrine the rosy flame 

On sweet May-day. Womb'd in the fruitful 
East, 

1 Maia, or Majesta, was one of" the names of Cybcle. (Not to 
be confounded with Maia, the mother of Hercules.) 



76 The Espousals of Our Lady 

Not vainly Westward, as the myths increased, 
This purer rite, nor unprophetic, came : 

A flower that should be gather'd for the feast 
Of Truth, with more that erst deck'd Pagan 
shame. 

No fabled mother of vain gods we pray,^ 

But our Emmanuel's Mother — sinless Maid.2 

To her we give, with hymns and posies gay, 
This fairest month — our hearts on her altar 
laid. 

That love of her, like touch of chastest fire, 
May purge them from the dross of low desire. 



THE ESPOUSALS OF OUR LADY 3 

[Scene. — Before the Temple steps^ as in celebrated picture.'^ 

St. Joseph 

(Awaiting the arrival of the Blessed Virgin :) 

T^ROM boyhood up I had but one desire : 

To live alone with God — as much alone 
As wholesome concourse with my fellow-men, 

1 Cybele was the " mater deum " of the Greeks and Romans. 

2 Mother of Emmanuel, therefore Mother of God. The Sec- 
ond Person of the Trinity is her Son. 

* Written for a Sunday-school celebration. 



The Espousals of Our Lady -j-j 

* 
And scope of humble traffic, would allow : 
Not sullenly churlish : with a helping hand 
For others' need — but peacefully obscure. 
And so^ when came the glow of youth, and 

thoughts 
Of woman's love dawn'd roseate, I upraised 
My heart to Him who was indeed to me 
The Good Supreme, the Beauty Infinite ; 
And made, at once, a vow perpetual 
Of perfect chastity : and straightway knew 
'Twas He had drawn me to it. 

Strangely, then, 
Sounded the high priest's message, summoning 
The unwed of David's lineage, who had claim, 
By sacred right of kinship, to espouse 
Its sole surviving maiden — bidding them 
Bring each a wand, whereby the Lord might 

show 
Whom He had chosen — and among them me, 
Nearest of kin, but trusting to lie hid, 
Half-way in the fifth decade of my years. 
Yet, ever wont to obey the voice divine. 
Within heard or without, I came, and stood 
Unseemly 'mid the suitors. Then the wands 
Were laid upon the altar — the high priest 



78 The Espousals of Our Lady 

Seeking the sign to Moses given of yore, 
When in the wilderness the tribes rebell'd 
'Gainst privileged Aaron. So wq knelt, and vi^ent, 
And waited on the Lord. 

And I that night, 
Like Joseph, son of Jacob, dream'd a dream ; — 
I saw a maiden, robed in purest white, 
Sit throned where once, in Solomon's vanished 

fane, 
Reposed the Ark, beneath the Mercy-seat, 
Within the holy of holies. While I gazed, 
Behold, a sudden vista of long light 
Opened as into heaven, and swiftly a dove 
Descended on the maid, yet settled not. 
But o'er her head hung brooding ! Then a 

voice 
Said softly : " Fear not, Joseph, for thy vow. 
Bride of the Dove is she ; and thou, her spouse, 
Shalt guard her for her Spouse." Whereat I 

woke, 
Astonished : and to find upon the morrow. 
That one of the rods had budded in the night — 
Budded and blossom'd j and that rod was mine ! 



The Espousals of Our Lady 79 

[.Sings ;] 

Though the dream brought me peace, there is 
mystery still : 
But in time He will solve it, the Lord of my 
love. 
'Tis enough that I know I am wedding His will — 
Beheld in this maiden, the "Bride of the 
Dove." 

Ah, who can she be — there enthroned as a 
bride 
Where the Ark of the Covenant rested of 
old? 
Is it she for whose advent our fathers have 
sigh'd — 
The long-promised Virgin the prophet fore- 
told ? 

And what was the Dove ? When the voice said 
" her Spouse," 
Did it mean that Jehovah had seaPd her His 
own ? 
Has she too, like me, made the sweetest of 
vows — 
To live evermore for divine love alone ? 



8o The Espousals of Our Lady 

But she comes : and I feel that the angels are 
here. 
Their charge to be mine ! They will share 
it, then, still. 
And the dear God Himself, was He ever so near ? 
Be at peace, O my soul ! Thou art wedding 
His will. 



The Blessed Virgin Mary 

[Enteringy ivitb attendant maidensy sings ;] 

ATY God, to Thee I bow : 
Thy will is ever mine. 
Thy grace inspired the vow 
That made me wholly Thine. 

If Thou dost bid me wed, 
Thou canst but guide aright. 

I follow, darkly led. 

Till break the perfect light. 

I take my chosen lord, 

And plight him troth for Thee, 
So find Thy sovran word 

Its Handmaid still in me! 



On the Feast of the Purification 8i 
Chorus of Angels 

[^fter the Spousal-rite has been ratified by the high priest:'] 

A LL hail, blest pair, all hail ! 
As yet ye little know 
What words that cannot fail 
To after times will show. 

Not angel eyes command 

The glorious lot that waits 
As meekly, hand in hand. 

Ye leave the Temple's gates. 



ON THE FEAST OF THE PURIFI- 
CATION 

JJTAPPY those turtle-doves that went, my 
Queen, 
With you to the Temple — tho' to death they 

went. 
Could they have known, they had been full 
content 
To give their little Hves. And well I ween 



82 The Smile 

Your pitying hand caress'd them ; and between 
The turns you took with Joseph (favorM 

Saint !) 
At carrying Jesus, you would soothe their 
plaint 
And hold to your Heart their bosoms* silver 
sheen. 

But cherish more my sister sweet and me. 
Carry within your Heart, and all the way, 
Our souls to the true Temple. Offer'd so. 
They cannot perish — no, nor parted be : 
For He whom you presented on this day 
Whom you present His own must ever 
know. 



1876. 



THE SMILE 

T WAS sad — 'twas a folly to go — 

'Mid the laugh of the young and the 
gay: 
I was lonely for one that I know ; 

For my sweet sister, then far away — 
In her calm convent-home far away. 



No/ Yet 83 

But my Queen, she was not far away ? 

She could sunshine my heart with her grace? 

Ah, yes ! But I pined for a ray 

Such as beams from a visible face — 
From the soul in my Angela's face. 

And you pitied me, too, O my Queen ! 
For you sent me the face of a child : 

A virginal face of fourteen. 

With a pureness so bright when it smiled. 
That all day it was you who had smiled ! 
1877. 



NOT YET 



jyjETHOUGHT the " King of Terrors » 
came my way : 

Whom all men flee, and none esteem it base. 
But lo, his smile forbidding me dismay, 

I stood — and dared to look him in the face. 
" So soon ! " the only murmur in my heart : 

For I had planned the deeds of many years : 
Ambitioning atonement, and, in part, 

To reap in joy what I had sown in tears.^ 

^ Ps. cxxv. 5, 6. 



84 In (j)rcie Jesu 

Then turning to Our Lady : "O my Queen, 
'I'were wiiry sweet already to have won 

My crown, and pass to see as I am seen, 
And nevermore offend thy blessed Son : 

Yet would I stay — and for myself, I own : — 

To win a little nearer to thy throne." 



IN COROK JKSU 

TV^Y Queen, thou knowest 1 would bring all 
hearts 
To love thee, if 1 could — and more than 
mine. 
Mine should be last and least. For love 

of thee, 
Unlike all other, breeds not jealousy, 
Hut rather makes its captive moan and pine 
(Sure proof that 'tis a passion grace imparts) 

To see thee lov'd thy Awe. Hut ah, if all 

Of Adam's race should love thee with the 
love 
Of Joseph and of John, 'twere not thy due ! 
For this no more the many than the few 



In Corde Jesu 85 

Suffice; nor would yon niyri;ul worlds above, 
Peopled with souls had never known a fall. 

The gather'd love of angels fails no less. 
'I'is (jod's alone can satisfy the claim — 
And that (glad thought !) o'ei Hows the 

measure's brim. 
Yet should 1 find deficiency in Him, 
Did lie not call ihce by the dearest name 
Of Mother, and with human lips express 

A human heart. Hut now I may not pine. 
The Heart of Jesus loves tlue all thy due 
(A love the sweeter that there is but one). 
And with His Heart /love thee, and atone 
For hearts estranged, or lukewarm, or half- 
true, 
And all the base inconstancies of mine. 



PART II 

From 1880 to 1898 



THE TEMPTATION 

T ATE afternoon in summer. Earth and sky 
Bathed in the light that hour alone can 

shed. 
In shady nook, with outlook on a lake, 
Lay one of mood contemplative. His heart 
Sent up its silent orisons to God ; 
Touching the Master's touch, and, mind to 

mind. 
Tasting the Infinite Beauty. Then — his 

wont — 
He murmur'd an Ave to that fairest fair 
Of creatures, who is Queen of all the rest. 
For all sweet hours of day or night, all times 
Of commune with great Nature, ever brought 
His Lady-love before him ; and he knew 
No joy so thrilling as the thought of her — 
Her loveliness, her glory, and the proofs 
Many and tender she had deigned to give 
That in her bosom was a place for him. 
89 



90 The Temptation 

And here some thoughts that morning jotted 

down 
Broke softly on the stillness — flowing thus : 

When o'er mine eyes her image lies, 
From poring on her pictur'd face, 
Till soaring thought has almost caught 
The features of the Throne of Grace : 
I strive to press the vision in — 

Deep down into my soul — and 

say : 
" Blind with thy light, O beauteous 
ray. 
These wonted avenues of sin ! " 

For could I meet, O Lady sweet ! 

That peerless face I long to see — 
Those eyes of blue, which look me through. 
And still can watch me lovingly ; 

The charm would haunt me with its 
bliss : 
No less than, should I hear thee 

speak. 
That music evermore would wreak 
Its own melodious Nemesis ! 



The Tempt atio7i 91 

But spirits malign are with us everywhere : 
And soon a voice far other than his Queen's 
Scoff'd answer : 

" If the poet sing at all. 
Be it to ears that hear. Else, less a waste 
To keep his ditties pent within his soul. 
And think you to bewitch a cultur'd age 
With mediaeval myths long voted stale ? 
Dreamer of vain ideals, go, exchange 
Your pale Madonna for the Paphian queen : 
Or if — too frigid for the glowing theme — 
You needs must hymn some Casta Diva, choose 
Dian ; and paint her with her virgin train 
By moonlight sleeping, or in morn-flush'd wave 
White-shining. See you not, the world awakes 
From GaHlean nightmare, and re-tunes 
Her slackened chords for old triumphant Pan ? " 

"Too fast," quoth he. "The Pagan comes 

again 
In morals, if you will ; but brings not back 
The poesy sublime, deific lore. 
Which saw divinity in Nature still, 
Tho' blind to Nature's God. 'Twas Pantheist 

then — 



92 The Temptation 

In garb religious dight, with priest and cult : 
But now crude, cold, and creedless Atheist. 

" Nor talk of mediaeval themes as stale, 
Even if myths they be. No myth is mine. 
Where else finds Tennyson enchanted ground 
For epic idyl ? " — 

" Ay, forsooth ! and he — 
Bard of ideal knights and maids and wives — 
Baits cunningly with ' Vivien ' and ' Etarre,' 
' Isolt ' and ' Guinevere,' to catch the taste 
That fails to relish ' Enid ' and ' Elaine ' ! " 

" Say, rather, that he sets in brighter light 
True womanhood by contrast. So he makes 
A foil of ' Lancelot ' for the ' blameless King.* 
But — say thy hst — he holds this cultur'd age 
In need of models from an age despised : 
The age of chivalry, if ' rude ' yclept ; 
Of faith, if ' dark ' ; and so of faith's ideals — 
If myths, yet never vain. 

Least vain is mine. 
As thou, lost spirit, knowest but too well. 
What wouldst not give to love the Queen of 
heaven. 



Via Immaculata 93 

And serve among her angel ministers ! 

If I, then, loving her, would humbly make 

My muse her handmaid, think not thine the 

skill 
To bribe me from my purpose, couldst thou 

offer 
A glory that should onward bear my name 
Till time's last waters meet eternity. 

" I sing not for the many. Some there are 
With ears to hear, and hearts to love the more. 
But my ambition's height is so to sing 
That I may one day meet my Lady's smile. 
And wear a laurel from her own dear hands." 



VIA IMMACULATA 1 
I 

TV/T ARY, thou chosen, thou Immaculate Way 
Whereby our Jesus came unto His own ; 
Behold, to me He comes, to make a throne 
Of my poor heart for brief, but gracious, stay ! 

1 "The Immaculate Way" (a devotion for Holy Communion). 



94 J^i^ Immaculata 

Let me by thee receive Him : for I may, 

Since thus the world received Him — thus 

alone. 
Lend me thy Heart, that treasure only known 

At its full worth by Him who comes to-day. 

Come to me, then, O Jesus — come, my King! 
For see, I offer Thee a sinless Heart — 
The one which drew Thee earthward in the 
hour 
When, swifter than the glad archangel's wing, 
Thou answeredst Mary's answer! Nor depart 
Till she hath spoiPd thee a rich mercy's 
dower. 

II 

And now, my Queen, since thou with thy 
true Heart 

Hast given me thy blessed Son once more, 

Abide with me, to thank Him and adore. 
From thy sweet company He will not part. 
How poor soever mine — whose utmost art 

Is having thee to please Him and implore. 

And I, in turn, will add unto the store 
Of joy which heal'd thy sword-pierced bosom's 
smart. 



A Corde Mar ice 95 

Yes, Lady : here is gift for gift. Behold 

This same dear Son of thine, and with Him 
me! 
His Heart, with all its love, I give thee 
back; 
And in it mine, so little, poor, and cold ! 
Accept the drop within the boundless sea : 
For in that ocean thou canst find no lack. 

Feast of the Purity of the Blessed Virgin Mary. 
October, 1880. 



A CORDE MARI^ 

" pjEART of Mary, be my home 

Through the toilsome years to come. 
Few or many let them be. 
So I live them all in thee. 

" Be my chapel when I pray : 
Be my altar day by day : 
Be my recollection sweet, 
My perpetual retreat. 

" If thy priest (for such my trust), 
Keep me pure and mild and just : 



96 A Corde Marice 

Thy apostle, give me power: 
If thy poet, be my bower." 

Thus the new priest made his prayer, 
Kneeling at Our Lady's altar. 

For he felt 'twas she had call'd him 
Else had such a cross appall'd him 
As the one he shoulder'd there 
With a trust that did not falter. 

Well he knew, from bitter past, 
Nothing in himself avail'd him ; 
Who to her sweet interceding 
Owed his faith with all its leading - 
All the grace had held him fast. 
All the help had never fail'd him. 

Twice four years had flow'd away ; 
Happy years, yet theme for sorrow. 
Years of many wasted graces ; 
Years o'errun with folly's traces — 
Ah, how oft the bright to-day 

Bringing down the dark to-morrow ! 

Yet, through all, had Mary's Heart 
Kept a faithful vigil o'er him. 



4 A Corde Mar ice 97 

If he left her, basely truant, 
She was evermore pursuant — 
With a mother's patient art 

Shaping still his way before him. 

So that, when at last he clomb 

(Knowing 'twas her hand that beckon'd) 
Up to higher paths and surer. 
Stronger air, and sunshine purer — 
Scaled to find the chosen home 

All that fondest hope had reckon'd — 

Was it strange that, full of rest 
On a love would never vary. 

He should pledge that love requital, 
Taking for his new name's title ^ 
One which told his story best — 
Simply « Of the Heart of Mary " ? 

1 In taking one's **new name," upon entrance into religious life, 
one receives not only the name of some Saint, but also what is called 
a "title" — •viz.y ** o/"" . . . some person or some thing (e.^., 
*'of the Holy Ghost," "of the Five Wounds," "of the Heart 
of Mary"). 



98 At Home 

AT HOME 

np HERE'S a Star that I follow, of kindliest 

ray : 
For she never has faiPd, never led me astray, 
Since the hour she look'd down on a sea that 

was dark, 
To guide my toss'd boat to the one saving Ark. 

*Tis for her I am here, at her gentle com- 
mand; 

For a work that is hers in this strange Southern 
land : 

And I find souls as precious, and hearts warm 
and true. 

As on those belovM shores I have bidden adieu. 

But a dearer joy still — ah, how wordlessly 

dear ! — 
Is the sense of her presence so tenderly near. 
Oh, never was sister or lover, I ween, 
Could sunshine the heart like my beautiful 

Queen ! 

Sweet Mother of God, my inviolate Love ! 
What more can I ask, till I see thee above. 



To Florence 99 

Than to feel in this exile, where'er I may 

roam, 
Thy keeping my rest, and thy bosom my 

home ? 

Buenos Ayres, February, 1884. 



TO FLORENCE : 

BORN WITHIN THE OCTAVE OF THE ASSUMPTION 

/^UR Lady's bright triumphal feast 

To me grows dearer year by year, 
For some new charm 'tis sure to gain : 
As now, to grace its memories' chain. 
One blossom more — with sunny tear 
Bejewell'd from a faith-lit East — 

Your birthday. To be born at all 
Within the month we consecrate 
To Mary's Heart, is boon, I ween. 
More than the heirdom of a queen : 
That Heart the heavenly palace Gate 
For those who love its gentle thrall. 



loo To Florence 

But you, within this octave born, 
Are highlier favor'd, happy girl ! 
Our Lady keeps you in her Heart 
Nearer its centre — more apart. 
To me, you rest there like a pearl 
In depths all rosy with the morn 

Of love that grows to perfect day. 

Yet think not mine an idle lute. 

To flattery tuned. Less yours the wrong 
Than hers were then this tribute song. 

Better the chords forever mute 
Than sounding one untruthful lay. 

Be sure your place in Mary's Heart 

Will cost you dearly. You must learn 
The precious lore of sacrifice. 
And 'tis, in sooth, a heavy price 
For one who craves, at every turn, 
Her own sweet will — if such the art 

Tou follow for a life of peace ? 
If wiser, then but ponder well 

The sorrows of that sinless breast — 
Which yet knew naught to mar its rest : 



To Florence loi 

Ask why and whence the dolorous spell 
That ruled her — but with joy's increase — 

Since first the angel's Ave woke 
Her maiden tremor, till the hour 

When, exile o'er, she stoop'd to death ? 
And why, at last, that yielded breath ? 
Where sin had never reign'd, what power 
Had vanquish'd death to deal his stroke ? 

One answer waits : So will'd it God. 
And she, His Handmaid evermore. 
Nor counting aught but love for loss. 
Drank her Son's chalice, shared His Cross ; 
And, while each step her heart-strings tore, 
In blood-stained footprints firmly trod ! 

So will'd it God. And, winning thus 
The crown of perfect sacrifice. 

She took her seat on Jesus' throne 
By right of conquest like His own ; 
Nor claim'd her place in Paradise 
By dower of grace unshared with us. 

Then school thee well, child, where thou art : 
No choicer school, no kinder home. 



I02 To My Sister Amy 

Howe'er our skies may change their 

weather, 
May thou and I abide together 
Where now, for many a year to come, 
I wish thee joy — in Mary's Heart ! 

Buenos Ayres, August 19, 1885. 



TO MY SISTER AMY 

" 111 ER face is tow'rd Jerusalem ^ — of Peace 

the Vision fair;^ 
Though little knows she yet, dear girl, the full 
feast waiting there. 
Nor falter now, but firmly tread, 
Her eager footsteps, mercy-led." 

So musing, sweet, when came to-day your letter 

from the sea — 
Triumphant o'er the ruthless waves which sun- 
der you and me — 
I hail'd with joy that not in vain 
My fond prayer soars and soars again. 

1 St. Luke, ix. 51-53. 

* Jerusalem means " Vision of Peace." 



To My Sister Amy 103 

Ay, morn and eve : but most, what time before 

God's altar stands 
Your brother, and Our Lord Himself lies Victim 
in his hands. 
He thinks of you, and lifts on high 
The Host, the Chalice, with a sigh 

That asks the help, the light, the strength you 

need to follow on 
Until the gift of perfect faith, the City's gate, 
be won. 
And your dear name is uppermost 
When I would sue the Holy Ghost 

With hymn and collect, tenderly, for all my 

kith and kin. 
That He, whose grace overflows the Church, 
may surely bring them in ; 
Or bid, at least, her saving power 
Shadow their souls in life's last hour. 

And oh, how calmly, day by day, I place you 

in the Heart 
Of God's own Blessed Mother, who will do 
her loving part ! 
I see her peerless title shine 
Your guiding-star, as once 'twas mine. 



I04 The Wreath and the Flower 

Our Lady, then, you know her now, and own 

our homage true : 
But have not thought of her, I ween, as your 
sweet Mother too ? 
Ah, call her so, and you shall prove 
The wonders of that new-found love ! 

Buenos Ayrks, June 30, 1885. 



THE WREATH AND THE FLOWER 

I 

T CULL'D my Queen the choicest blooms 

That grow in poet's garden ; 
For well I knew who thus presumes 
Need never ask her pardon. 

I wove a wreath of honeyed flowers. 

The brightest and the rarest. 
But one was left to sun and showers — 

The simplest, yet the fairest. 

I thought, because 'twas found beside 

The highways and the hedges; 
In knots where quiet streamlets glide, 

Or lone on rocky ledges; 



The Wreath and the Flower 105 

'Twas all too common for a crown 

As rare as I was wreathing : 
Yet none so fitting her renown, 

Or richer fragrance breathing. 

II 

My wreath, 'twas every sweetest name 

Of cunning love's devising : 
A garland some would scorn to frame, 

As 'neath Our Lady's prizing. 

And that one flower of common growth. 

Yet fairer than all other? 
A word no lips are ever loath 

To voice — the name of Mother, 

She, of all mothers, needs must love 

This tender name most dearly. 
No angel-note she hears above 

Can touch her Heart so nearly. 

For — more than any music when 

Her mortal children sigh it — 
The Lord of angels and of men, 

Her Maker, calls her by it ! 



io6 The Wreath and the Flower 

III 

Then, radiant Queen, thou fairest fair — 

Who with a smile undoest 
All other chains thy captives wear — 

Of true-loves thou the truest ! 

If I, among thy bondsmen least — 
This heart so oft betrays thee — 

May yet, as now, on thy Heart's feast, 
A chaplet weave to praise thee : 

'Mid rarer blooms I deftly twine 
From wealth of poet's bower, 

A dewy gem shall frequent shine, 
That one sweet, simple flower. 

So, for thine eyes, the wreath shall mean 
(Small matter what for other) : 

" My dearest Love, because my Queen — 
But more, because my Mother." 

Feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, 1886. 



Two Flowers 107 

TWO FLOWERS 



'HESE Carmen 1 Camps' delicious green, 
While others mourn the lingering drought, 
Turns thought to thee, my dearest Queen ! 
These breezes, too, which waft about 



T 



Thy blessing — balmy airs, that bring 

Thus early, in the wonted hour 
Of chilling gales,2 the sense of Spring — 

Remind us of thy gentle power. 

II 

Our Lady of Mount Carmel keeps 

Around her town ^ a garden fair, 
And richer dews than evening weeps 

Are falling ever fruitful there. 

And one choice flower 'tis mine to know: 
A lily — all so pure and sweet 

1 * * Carmen ' ' is Spanish for Carmel. The " Carmen Camps ' ' are 
the plains around Carmen de Areco, a town in the Province of 
Buenos Ayres. 

2 September is the March of this climate, 

8 The town is named after Our Lady of Mount Carmel, and ha« 
its church dedicated to her. 



io8 Two Flowers 

That only Mary's self can show 
The treasure blooming at her feet. 

To me she shows it. Ay, my Queen : 

Thou bidst me prize what thou dost prize; 

And 'tis enough when I have seen 
Wherever rest those gracious eyes. 

And lo ! beside this lily rare 

A rose unfolds its blushing leaves, 

And looks — so fresh, so free from care — 
But form'd to smile where nothing grieves ! 

It shall. But ah ! not yet, not here, 

Can rose or lily smile for aye ! 
There's need of many an April tear 

To deck them for eternal May. 

Ill 

How favor'd I, to share a task 

Which angels covet — yea, thine own, 

Sweet Mother ! Thou hast deign'd to ask 
A prayer at Jesus' altar-throne — 

A faithful prayer through years to come — 
To help thee cherish lives like these ! 



l^irgo Fidelis 109 

I promise. Let my Northern home 
Reclaim me — daily o'er the seas 

Shall memory, dove-like, wing her flight. 
To circle round thy Carmen bower : 

Until that other garden's light 

With glory robe each fadeless flower. 

September, 1886. 

♦ 

VIRGO FIDELIS 

r\^ all thy titles, O my Queen and Mother, 
In this sweet Litany said or sung — 
A row of pearls so deftly strung, 

'Tis hard to call one fairer than another — 

" Virgo Fidelis " is to me the dearest. 
Nor only that it brings to view 
Thy perfect faith, so staunchly true. 

And trustful Heart, to His Heart ever nearest 

Who would not die without thee standing by 
Him ; 
Who proved thee in thy Dolors Seven, 
And left thee when He went to heaven 

(Knowing thou wouldst not even this deny Him) 



no To My Sister Amy 

To watch with all a mother's best devotion 
Over the new-born Church, and grow 
Into its very life-blood's flow 

Of holiest thought and tenderest emotion. 

But more, thy faithfulness as mine own 
Mother — 

To one so basely mean to thee ; 

One so unworthy ev'n to be 
Last of thy servants, less than lowest other ! 

'Tis this, all this, I hear in that sweet title, 
"Virgo Fidelis." Ah! 'twere woe — 
'Twere blank despair — did I not know 

Thou hast in Jesus' love thy full requital. 

Lent, 1888. 

♦ 

TO MY SISTER AMY BECOME A 
CATHOLIC 

"AT last within the Gates," I said : " within 

"^ the Jasper 1 Walls! 
Where comes not darkness — no, nor mist — 
but ever sweetly falls 

1 Apoc. xxi. 18. — How significant, that the walls of the New 
Jerusalem (the Church) are of the same material as the first founda- 



To My Sister Amy iii 

The light of perfect faith, the peace 
Where doubts are dead and errors cease." 

Dear sister mine, though ruthless waves roll 

longer 'twixt us now, 
And I waft kisses o'er the snow on Aconcagua's 
brow, 
Yet are we nearer than before — 
Than when I sang from Plata's shore. 

Ay, nearer than the happy day when heart to 

heart we stood ; 
When home I came and found you grown to 
blooming womanhood — 
Just sixteen summers older — you 
Whom I had left a child of two : 

For oh ! how little knew we then each other's 

deeper thought ! 
No word had ever cross'd the void my Roman 
faith had wrought — 
A gulf that parted home and me 
With wider reach than Atlas' sea. 

tion-stone (v. 19), on which is the name of the first Apostle (v. 14) ! 
Peter's faith is not only the first foundation of the Church, but forms 
the rery walls that encompass her. 



112 To My Sister Amy 

But now, for both, this Roman faith, which 

caused those silent years, 
Is more than closest tie of blood — more 
sacredly endears : 
Nor mountains rise nor ocean rolls 
Can sunder now our hearts and souls. 

O twice my sister — in the bond of one all- 
precious faith. 
Which knits our very spirits here, and will not 
break at death ! 
What reck if yet we cannot meet 
But in devotion pure and sweet? 

One home of truth, one realm of grace, one 

Sacrifice divine. 
One Mother Mary's Heart of love — all this is 
yours and mine ; 
And nearness of supreme content 
In the Most Blessed Sacrament ! 

Valparaiso, Chili, 1888. 



To the Author of "She" 113 

TO THE AUTHOR OF «SHE"i 



T WEEN was never a more potent spell 

Than thine, Magician, in this weird 
romance. 
For deeper minds, it leads no idle dance 
Thro' realistic scenes ; but ponders well 
The mystery of Life : the rise and swell 

Of Time's great tides : their promise-bright 

advance. 
And pitiless ebb — which seems, to mortal 
glance. 
So fate-fraught, and evokes melodious knell. 

And what our sense of immortality ? 
Does it but mean we live again, again. 
Re-incarnated, yet to cease at last ? 
Ah, Truth is a " veil'd goddess " unto thee ! ^ 

1 These sonnets were originally written in 1888, during my stay 
in Chili, and appeared in the London Month, over the signature of 
" Theophilus. " Several changes have since been madej and the 
first eight lines of the fourth sonnet written anew, for the reason that 
I had made Ustane rhyme with " vain " — whereas the name should 
be pronounced Ooitdbneb. 
• 2 Sec the splendid chapter headed " The Temple of Truth." 



114 To the Author of *' She" 

Tho' Hope and Love shine star-like not in 
vain 
To guide thee upward from the groping 
past. 

? II 

Thou speakest of the Spirit Infinite, 

Whose hand hath set the myriad orbs of 

space 
To run their courses. From His breath the 
race 
Of Man hath being ; from His wisdom light. 
Yet seemeth He to use a boundless might 
In sporting with creation. We may trace 
His presence, but shall never see His face ; 
And needs must worship His unquestioned 
right. 

I gather such thy creed. Yet thou dost long 
To rest in vision of the Perfect Good — 
Fruition of the Beautiful, the True : 
Wherein thy spirit, ever fresh and strong. 
May sate its hunger on celestial food — 
Knowledge and Love — with relish ever 
new. 



To the Author of ''She" 115 

III 
Then, whence this longing ? Comes it not from 
Him 
Who form'd thee ? Thou art conscious of a 

soul. 
Then, say not He has made the golden bowl 
To break, nor rather fill it to the brim. 
Thou wouldst not charge Him with caprice or 
whim ? 
Yet, had He left us pressing toward a goal 
Forever out of reach, let ages roll — 
No Word divine where reason's light is dim, 
No answer to the universal cry 

Of children feeling for a Father's arms — 
How were He God ? How Goodness 
absolute ? 
But God He is. And this the only why 

That Knowledge doth not mock us with its 

charms. 
And Love yields more than ashes for its fruit. 

IV 

Not mine the thought that thou dost overrate 
The strength of woman's love in braving 

pain — 
Ay, death itself. " Ustane " pleads in vain, 



ii6 To the Author of ''She" 

Then meets unflinchingly her cruel fate. 

And She, repentant Ayesha,^ dares to wait 
Two thousand years till he shall come again 
Whom for his truth her jealous hand hath 
slain ; 

Nor, dying, deems a second age too late. 

If ever human love be " strong as death," 
'Tis woman's. Hers a patience, and a trust, 
A constancy that prove the deeper heart : 
And most in Motherhood. I match my faith 
With thine in woman's love. Do thou — 
'tis just — 
Match thine with mine in God's love ere 
we part. 

V 

For whence hath woman's heart its wondrous 
dower ? 
The gift of Him that made it. But to give 
Is theirs who have. In God, then, must it 
live. 
This tender love and true — this priceless power 
To bless in joy's, to soothe in sorrow's, hour — 

1 Pronounced "Assha," Mr. Haggard tells us. 



To the Author of ''She" 117 

This constancy, so patient to achieve 
A conquest, and so often doom'd to grieve 
O'er some frail prize that v^ithers like a flower. 

Yea, He who gave must have withal. And I 
Learn God's love more from Woman than 
from Man, 
From Mother than from Father. But with 
Him 
It cannot fail in purpose. Ah, then, why 
Wilt thou not trust it, tho' it work a plan 
That baffles us where reason's light is dim ? 



VI 

Enough for me, that when He came to save 
His fallen world (to thee not unbeknown 
The Christian's lore), from woman's heart 
alone 

He took the virginal ransom which He gave. 

See Him a Babe in Bethlehem's stable-cave ! 
Was ever winsome love so sweetly shown ? 

That Mother: will He keep her all His own — 

The one pledge more our timid faith would 
crave ? 



1 1 8 To the Author of '' She " 

Ah no ! He makes her from the very Cross 
Our Mother, with a prayer that cannot 
fail — 
A prayer shall hold His mercy when He 
needs 
Must judge us ! 

What if heresy spurn for dross 
This chain of gold ? No truth has more 
avail 
With Wisdom's children in the creed of 
creeds. 

VII 

Ay, One I know, true Ayesha, second Eve : 
No fond ideal of what can never be. 
Yet peerless Queen of womankind is she, 

Past fairest all that poet-thought may weave. 

Conceived Immaculate ; chosen to conceive 
Incarnate Godhead: Queen of chastity; 
Nor less of mercy, tho' herself so free 

From shadow of stain ! Ah, didst thou but be- 
lieve 

In this sweet Virgin with her twofold love 
Maternal — then, as mirrorM in a lake, 



To My Sister Constance 119 

The beauty of God would feast thy happy 
sight : 
Nor wouldst thou seek to pierce the skies 
above — 
Content to trust a Goodness which could make 
In darkling world such depths of perfect 
light ! 

Vina del Mar, Chili, 
1888. 



TO MY SISTER CONSTANCE 

T JOY in thinking, dearest sister mine, 

That you were born into this world of strife 
So near the Birthday of the Lord of life, 
Who brought the empire of a peace divine.^ 
Por see ! The royal Maid of David's line 
To Bethlehem comes as humble Joseph's 

wife; 
And turns her from the inn, where tongues 
are rife 
With jest and gibe — or, if some heart incline 
To pity the young Mother, none will brave 
Discomfort for her sake : — ay, turns away — 

1 Born December aad. 



I20 To My Sister Constance 

And God within her — following her spouse 
To meanest shelter in a stable-cave : 

And there, for all the quiring angels' lay, 
Creation's King and Queen with beasts 
must house ! 

That inn the blind, self-seeking world. How 
blest 
To live, like Mary, hidden and unknown. 
Are you, amid a world which " loves its 
own," 
But shuts out God, with whom alone is rest ! 
Your favorite task, too, is of all the best : 

To tend and teach the lowly ; who may 

groan 
At worldly doors for comfort, grudged if 
thrown ; 
In health as cattle deem'd, in sickness pest. 
'Tis thw^you house it with the wondrous Three, 
Whom yet you view but as in pictur'd 
story.i 

1 Cardinal Newman, in his " Grammar of Assent " (p. 57), says 
of Anglicanism : " It is not a religion of persons and things, of acts 
of faith and of direct devotion ; but of sacred scenes and pious senti- 
ments. ... Its doctrines are not so much facts, as stereotyped 
aspects of fects j and it is afraid, so to say, of wallcing round them. 



To My Sister Constance 121 

God*s touch of grace must give you other 
sight. 
And this I pray Him — that, as once to me 
Stole from that midnight grot a ray of glory ,1 
So thence to you may come faith's perfect 
light. 

Feast of St. Edmund of Canterbury. 

It induces its followers to be content with this meagre view of re- 
vealed truth J or, rather, it is suspicious and protests, or is fright- 
ened, as if it saw a figure in a picture move out of its frame, when 
Our Lord, the Blessed Virgin, or the Holy Apostles are spoken of 
as real beings, and really such as Scripture implies them to be." I 
mean, then, that a pious Anglican may believe no less than a Cath- 
olic in the Gospel story of the Nativity ; and, again, from devotion 
to the poor for Our Lord's sake, may feel quite at home in the 
grotto of Bethlehem, as regards its opposition to the spirit of world- 
liness : yet that only we Catholics can feel personally at home there, 
as oursel'ves members of the Holy Family — brothers and sisters of 
Jesus Christ, with His Father (whose representative or "shadow" 
we behold in St. Joseph) for our Father, and His Mother for our 
Mother. 

1 The glory, to wit, of the divine Maternity ; and, therefore, a 
ray of light as to Our Blessed Lady's place in the kingdom of the 
Incarnation. 



122 The Rosary 

THE ROSARY 

T KNOW a garden of roses sweeter far 

Than ever woo'd the amorous nightingale. 
Or glistened dewy to the vesper star 
In fairest Eastern vale. 

For lo, the King and Queen of all the flowers 
Did plant this Eden in the realm of Prayer — 

Endow'd with murmurous streams and restful 
bowers 
And ever gentle air ! 

But loveliest charm the roses white and red ; 

That fade not when we cull them, but will 
breathe 
Immortal fragrance when the crowns are dead 

Which pride and pleasure wreathe. 

And who may enter here ? What hands may 
dare 

To gather of these roses ? All for whom 
Faith keeps the gate : no angel standing there 

With flaming sword of doom. 

Not youth alone, nor innocence, shall find 
The morning freshness and the noonday rest : 



A Farewell 123 

But toil and age, worn body, weary mind, 
And conscience-stricken breast. 

Yea, guilt herself may come and bind the brow 
Which many a harden'd year has paled and 
wrinkled — 

With garlands from a better wave, I trow, 
Than fabled Lethe sprinkled. 



A FAREWELL 1 

OTARS of the Southern sky. 

Soon to be hidden by the ruthless sea, 

Another fond good-by — 
A long one — aye, forever, it may be ! 

I learnt to love you well 
In boyhood first, what time your mystic rays 

Would awe me with their spell. 
Yet whisper peace and promise happy days. 

But little guess'd my thought 
TFhat peace awaited me — what peerless gain. 

,1 At sea. May, 1892. 



124 A Farewell 

A treasure cheaply bought, 
If such had been its price, by years of pain. 

O holy Faith of Rome, 
I read thy symbols now in yonder sky ! 

Gem-bright on velvet dome, 
A lore which erst escaped my boyish eye. 

The Cross, the Crown — how much 
Their meaning now ! The Bird's unfolding 
wings.i 

The Harp that waits the touch 
Of victor hand upon its golden strings. 

And lo. Saint Peter's bark — 
The Ship that circumnavigates the pole ! 

Sail on, O saving ark — 
Imperishable transport of the soul ! 

An upward glance, and there 
The Virgin stands. Madonna, it is thou ! 

Faint-outlined form so fair : 
But one pure star to grace thy royal brow : 

1 Symbol of prayer and contemplation. 



A Farewell 125 

Yet thou it is. The sign 
From thought of thee received its pagan name, 

As primal word divine 
In dim tradition down from Eden came. 

Queen of my life, though late 
Beknown to this frail heart, but lovM the 
more ! 

I hail in thee my fate — 
My pilot to the everlasting shore. 

What wonder that I see 
Long rosaries of stars,i that bid me pray 

With tender trust to thee 
For daily help and dear ones far away ? 

Farewell, O Southern sky I 
I take thy lessons to my Northern home. 

Beam on me till I die, 
Remember'd orbs, the heav'n-born light of 
Rome ! 

1 There are long uringi of tiny stars in the Southern sky. 



126 Commemorative of Dec, i8, 1889 



COMMEMORATIVE OF DECEM- 
BER 18, 1889 



T LOV'D before thy feast of Expectation, 
Queen of my heart — ay, lov'd it passing 
well. 
One of the beads thy priest is wont to tell 
In his thanksgiving chaplet of vocation : 
Recounting, from the first sweet inspiration, 
Each tender touch of light, and how it fell ; 
But fondly lingering on the goal to dwell — 
Th' irrevocable step of consecration, 
Which, daring much, yet wisely, he did take 
When holy Church, with caution due, be- 
stow'd 
Her first of greater orders. She that day 
Was keeping this thy feast ; and seem'd 
to say, 
" Pass calmly on. Not perilous the road 
To those who choose it for Our Lady's 
sake." 



Commemorative of Dec, i8, 1889 **7 

II 

But now this day will speak to eye and ear 
With charm still deeper : and recall a scene 
Of bliss long-hoped for, which at last hath 
been. 
A priest at the altar stands; and, kneeling 

near. 
His pure-soul'd sister prays, o*erjoy'd to hear 
Her brother's Mass. And soon at the rail 

they meet — 

Meet soul to soul in one Communion sweet; 

Heart beats with heart in One supremely dear — 

The Heart of Him who gave them to each 

other 

In the one Faith, one Hope, one Love divine. 

Such the bright vision, such the music 

heard. 
On this thy feast, at memory's magic word : 
While thou art looking on, O Blessed Mother, 
Supplying for our feeble thanks with thine ! 



Ill 

But thou didst more than smile on us and pray. 
A visit to thy shrine ; and lo, thy face 



128 Commemorative of Dec. i8, 1889 

Beams softly down upon the very place 
Where Amy knelt, another happy day,i 
To cast the bonds of heresy away ! 

And here the coveted privilege is mine 

To clothe her with thy Scapular, in sign 
Of homage thou wilt lovingly repay 
With swift protection at all hours, but most 

When things of earth to dying eyes grow 
dim. 

*' With thee I leave her, then ! " my parting 
boast : 
"With thee for Jesus — safer than be- 
fore. 
What recks it if on earth we meet no 
more. 
So thou but keep us in thy Heart for Him ? " 

Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, 
Buenos Ayres, 1890. 

1 October 12, 1888. 



England Revisited 129^ 

ENGLAND REVISITED, 
I 
T^EAR England, seen once more in leafy 
June — 
But thrice within a score of years and five, 
And twice beheld when fondness had to 
strive 
'Gainst winter's reign and feelings out of tune — 
How beautiful I found thee ! What a boon 
To taste again thy best of fresh and green ! 
Thou hast not changed, if I have. Nor, I 
ween. 
Have I in love for thee, though sun and moon 
Of fairer climes have woo'd me. 

Dearer far 
I hold thee now than when, in youthful days, 
I sigh'd for other shores. And if I go, 
'Tis only that my Lady wills it so. 
And oh, how peacefully the heart obeys 
Her sweet behest — my life's sure-guiding Star ! 

II 

Ah, thou wast once her very " Dower " yclept ! 
Wilt yet reclaim the title ? I may trust 



130 Puer Natus est Nobis 

High Mercy's purpose (and, in sooth, I 
must — 
Or vainly would thy saints have pray'd and 

vi^ept. 
Thy martyrs agonized) : that thou art kept 
For great achievement in the final times — 
When thou shalt nobly expiate the crimes 
Of faithless centuries — thy dream outslept. 

Ay, even now that evil dream is breaking — 
That spell Satanic which has bound thee 

long; 
And o'er thy senses the remember'd song 
Of ancient worship stealing : while the face 
Of God's sweet Virgin-Mother, full of grace. 

Looks down forgivingly to greet thy waking ! 

Sacred Heart Retreat, 
Louisville, Ky. 



PUER NATUS EST NOBIS 

npHE feast of Madonna and Child — 

Of Mary with Babe on arm ! 
Nor frost and snow, nor season mild, 
Can make or mar its charm. 



Puer Natus est Nobis 13 

I have kept it on Plata's shore, 

'Mid heats of Southern June ; 
And where Pacific tides brim o'er 

Beneath a summer moon : 

But the sense of strange would cease ; 

For there it was Christmas still : 
And clear the song " On earth be peace 

Wherever reigns good-will." 

" To every people joy " : 

For the Christ was born for all. 

If shepherds found the wondrous Boy 
At herald angel's call, 

A Star in the East shone forth, 

To glad the Gentiles' sight : 
While broke for West and South and North 

The promised dawn of light. 

Dear God ! What a gift is His ! 

With Jesus our Baby-Brother, 
His Father in heaven our Father is, 

And Mary our own sweet Mother ! 



132 Our Lady of the Holy Souls 



OUR LADY OF THE HOLY SOULS 

npHE Queen of heaven we hail thee, and of 
earth — 
The Church Triumphant tho' thy chief do- 
main, 
Yet this our Sion, Militant from birth. 

With thee to aid, hath never fought in vain. 

Nor is it less for thy divine Son's glory 

That thou art Empress o'er the realm be- 
lovv^, 

Where languish the poor souls in Purgatory — 
The Church Expectant, in her peaceful woe. 

Ay, there too thou dost reign — a Queen, a 
Mother ! 
The " prisoners of the King " thy subjects 
are: 
But more thy children — sister each, or brother, 
To Him whose justice keeps them still afar. 

And well thou knowest how to soothe their 
pains 
With tender ministries by angel hands. 



Our Lady of the Holy Souls 133 

Who least deserve, thy mercy ne'er disdains : 
Where least thy power, thy pity most ex- 
pands. 

Where least thy power ? Ah, foolish mortals 
they. 
Whose little love, and service prone to tire, 
So circumscribe thy very right to pray. 

That scarcely canst thou claim them — 
" saved by fire " ! 

But blest, thrice blest, who give thee more and 
more 
The right to shield them in their combat 
here ! 
For these, when they have won Salvation's 
shore. 
Shall find thy Heart a refuge sweetly near. 

We well believe that there are golden days 
When thou descendest, with an angel train, 

To bear away to choirs of endless praise 
A favorM throng from ever-ended pain. 

And most upon thy bright Assumption feast 
Thou bringest, it is said, rich harvest home. 



134 To Leo XIII 

But oh, not less, I trow, when wafts the East 
Mount Carmel's gratitude to mindful Rome ? 

O wondrous Scapular ! O sacred sign 

Of promise true to save, and strong to free ! 

'Tis all the cunning of a Love divine ! 

Yes, Mother — of the love that gave us thee I 



TO LEO XIII 



•' T UMEN DE CCELO " ^ do we read thy 
name. 
In mystic lore previsioned long ago ? 
Then, such the wisdom thou hast made to 
flow 
Like light around thee : for from heaven it came. 
If nations heed it not, but theirs the blame. 
It shines for all, with pure and placid glow : 

1 There seem to be two readings of this title : " Lumen de Ccelo " 
— Light from heaven; and "Lumen in Coelo " — Light (or A 
Light) in heaven. Each is singularly appropriate, as I have shown 
in these sonnets. 



To Leo XIII 135 

Ay, harbinger of peace, like Noe*s bow ; 
And eloquent with Pentecostal flame. 

" Great Leo the Peacemaker," men will say. 
Who gather fruit in better times to be. 

Reaping what thou hast sown. In times 
not far, 
I ween, though darkness follow swift the day 
Of thy bright reign — till faith-lit eyes shall 
see 
" Pastor Angelicus' " triumphant star.i 



II 

^' LUMEN IN CCELO " reads thy title too. 

And this thou art in heaven's wide kingdom 
here — 

The holy Church. A light to love, to fear — 
As men would seek, or shun, the good, the true. 
But other sense, methinks, the prophet knew ; 

1 According to the prophetic list of the Popes " Lumen de CcbIo" 
is to be followed by " Ignis Ardens," " Religio Depopulata," and 
" Fides Intrepida," before " Pastor Angelicus " shall appear. Three 
periods (probably very short) of conflict and persecution, therefore, 
will precede the promised triumph. 



136 To Christopher Columbus 

Since one meek souP hath found it sweetly 

clear : — 
There is an Eye in heaven ^ — Our Lady 

dear — 
Whose watchful glance the baffled Fiend doth 

rue. 

For thou, O Pontiff, with unerring voice. 
Hast bidden us call on Mary, loud and long. 
And in thy hand chief weapon we behold 
Her Rosary — the unletter'd peasant's choice. 
O simplest prayer, yet still divinely strong 
As when its worth Lepanto's glory told ! 



TO CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 



/^ OD chose thee out, O man of faith and 
prayer, 
And sent thee o'er the deep — if truth be told. 
Neither ambition's greed nor lust of gold 

1 A favored French domestic, Madeleine Porsat. (See "The 
Christian Trumpet," sixth edition, page 196.) 

2 " Lumen " means " eye " in poetry, therefore also in prophecy. 



To Christopher Columbus 137 

Could make thy heart so confidently dare. 
"The boldest steer," the poet saith, "but 
where 
Their ports invite." Yet thou, divinely 

bold, 
Didst little reck vi^hat wrathful billows roll'd 
'Twixt thee and shores imagined — havens fair 
Which seem'd to lesser minds the veriest " stuff" 
That " dreams are made of." 

Into the vast unknown 
Thou wentest forth — in steadfast hope, alone. 
But God was with thee : for thy peace enough. 
His breezes serv'd thee; and when seas were 

dark. 
His stars more surely led thy destined bark. 



II 

Ay, and for thee a Star shone all the way 

Which others would not see — the Queen of 

stars. 
Brighter than Venus, Jupiter, and Mars 

In one ; and clearest 'mid the blaze of day. 

The Ocean Star, whose sweetly constant ray 
Smiled calmness on a brow no petty jars 



138 To Christopher Columbus 

Could vex — a brow where pain had printed 
scars 
Which told of vanquished self through years of 
fray. 

Thy soul, uplifted ever to the light 

Of that true Guide whose name thy vessel 
bore. 
Took her for pilot. Morning, noon, and night. 
To her thine " Aves " rose : and more and 
more 
Thy trust increased, the sullen crew despite — 
Their menace deadlier than the tempest's 
roar. 

Ill 

But thou, Christ-Bringer to the new half- 
world, 
Christ-Bearer too, didst, with the Christ, His 

Cross 
Thy portion find. Thy glory's earthly gloss 
Scarce lasted till the home-bound sails were 

furl'd. 
Ingratitude and envy swiftly hurl'd 

Their torches at thy fame. But was it loss 



Notre Dame 139 

They wrought thee ? Nay, a merit purged 
of dross. 
For this those lurid flames so fiercely curPd. 

And when had passed the years that seem'd so 
long, 
And came Our Lady with a call to rest. 
She led thy spirit through the sainted throng 
To where her Son reigns Monarch of the 
blest ; 
And He bestow'd, in meed of sufFer'd wrong, 
A richer realm than thy discovered West. 



NOTRE DAMEi 



QUR LADY OF THE WEST — the fresh 
young West, 
So full of promise for the years to come — 
She stands right queenly on her gilded dome. 
And claims it all : its all of first and best. 
Its all of hearts and souls, that cannot rest 

^ The University of Notre Dame, Indiana : conducted by priests 
and brothers of the Congregation of the Holy Cross. 



140 Notre Dame 

But in the Truth, or out of Truth's one home : 
Ay, claims it all — for Jesus and for Rome — 
What though unheard, though scorn'd her lov- 
ing quest. 

And lo, the realm beneath her feet ! Look round. 

This wide domain, these structures chaste and 
fair — 

Are they a vision soon to melt in air ? 
For seems it that I tread enchanted ground. 
If I but dream, by some magician bound. 

Ah, let not hope awaken to despair ! 



II 

No dream, my soul. For here, where Science 
rules 
A chosen band well skill'd to teach and guide. 

The Seat of Wisdom doth herself preside 

O'er truth's diffusion through harmonious 
schools : 

Not godless knowledge — making apter tools 
For devils' purposes — the food of pride : 
Nor hollow cant — stern duty set aside — 

That swells "the endless multitude of fools." 



Notre Dame 141 

The Cross their banner, Mary's favor'd sons 
Preach first th' evangely of Christ and Paul — 
The one " Divine Philosophy," in sooth : 
So simply clear that he may read who runs ; 
Yet compassing and consecrating all 

That deepest minds can glean and store of 
truth. 

Ill 

'Mid yonder trees another stately pile,^ 

With temple at its side ! Approach : for 
there 

One vision more of structures chaste and fair 
Will well repay the intervening mile. 
And let our guide recount for us the while 

How blossom'd forth, from desert wild and 
bare. 

These gardens of true life and culture rare : 
Romantic tale might many a league beguile. 

'Tis here Our Lady's daughters take their part 
In working out her high and gracious plan. 
They aim to form the woman in the girl : 

1 St. Mary's Convent and Academy. The academy is con- 
ducted by Sisters called " Marianites of the Holy Cross." 



142 Notre Dame 

Their chiefest care for virtue's priceless 
pearl ; 
Nor foolishly unsex " the lesser man," ^ 
And strain her brain to rob her of her heart. 

IV 

Thy daughters, O my Queen j and callM to 
pray 
As thou didst in thy Dolors : evermore 
With tender sympathy musing o'er and o'er 
Those Sorrows Seven : and thus, from day to 

day. 
Keeping thee company along the way 
Of perfect sacrifice.^ 

Unworldly lore, 
O worldling ! Truly. And is this their store. 
You ask, for schooling maidens bright and gay ? 
Not all their store, O sage one ! But the rest 
Hath hence its sanction. 

Culture, understood, 
Must lead its votary to a higher good. 
What feeds self-worship, then — is this the 
best ? 

1 "Woman is the lesser man." — Tennyson. 

* The Sisters wear the Seven Dolor Rosary at their girdles. 



Notre Dame 143. 

Or that which takes self-conquest for its test ? 
Which shapes the nobler, lovelier woman- 
hood ? 



Farewell, Notre Dame ! St. Mary's, and to 
thee! 
Visions of beauty not beheld in vain : 
An earnest of the boon redeeming pain 

Did purchase for us — present and to be. 

Farewell, ye temples rich and pure : to me 
Unrivall'd trophies of faith's patient gain : 
Not only here, on Indiana's plain, 

But o'er this continent from sea to sea ! 

Our Lady of the West ! who love thy sway 
And long to hail it under every sky. 

Know naught of anxious tremors while they 
pray. 
Like yon Saint Joseph's river, gliding by 
So calmly that Its flow deceives the eye, 

Thy gentle power securely makes its way. 



44 ^^^t by the Way 



REST BY THE WAY 

/^ H long, sad journey, from the land of light, 
^^^ Jehovah's land, to Egypt's darken'd realm. 
Where reign'd idolatry — with feller blight 
Than all ten plagues, than waters arm'd i to 
whelm 
The host of Pharao ! Yet that weary way 
Was broken oft by hours of blissful rest. 
When the young Mother could repose and 
pray, 
As slept the rescued Infant on her breast. 
And ministering angels then drew near. 

With melodies of heav'n to soothe His 
sleep. 
And thine, my Queen, no less. Thy soul could 
hear 
Those dulcet strains : and thou didst softly 

weep 
In ecstasy of joy. Ah, blessed One — 
With God's Word-Music for thy very Son ! 

1 " He shall arm the creature, and it shall fight with Him against 
the impious." — Wisdom. 



Our Lady of Good Counsel 145 

ON A PICTURE OF OUR LADY OF 
GOOD COUNSEL 

" IV/fY Queen, my Love — all-beautiful ! 

Could I but see thy face, 
And hear thy voice," I fondly sighed, " what 
need of-other grace ? 

"Such power hath music o'er my soul, and 

beauty o'er my heart, 
What folly could allure me then from wisdom's 

way to part ? " 

But this a boon she could not grant, and leave 

me still on earth — 
Still striving for the perfect joy 'gainst things of 

little worth : 

And so her angel brougij one day a picture 
wholly new 

To eyes that turned from highest art and hun- 
gered for the true : 

A picture all so heavenly sweet — the Mother 

with the Child ; 
And that blue mantle folding Him to bosom 
» undefiled. 



i^6 To the Lady of My Love 

I said : " Dear messenger of bliss, what may 

this vision be ? '* 
" Our Lady of Good Counsel — from a 

famous shrine," quoth he. 

And seems it now, in very sooth, each morning 
I have seen 

Thy blessed face, and heard thy voice, all- 
beautiful, my Queen ! 

January, 1895. 



TO THE LADY OF MY LOVE 

npHOU hearest oft "All-beautiful, my 
Queen ! " 

From one who worships what he has not seen : 
From one content to know thee fairest fair 
Of womankind, and sweet beyond compare. 

And comely with immortal loveliness. 

Surpassing all that poet's heart may guess. 

And while he owns most humbly, as he ought. 
His undeserving of one tender thought 
From thee, O dearest ! or of any place 



To the Lady of My Love 147 

In thine inviolate bosom full of grace, 
He knows, from many a proof, that thou dost 

deign 
Receive his love, and largely love again. 

Then, if he finds thy beauty, O my Queen ! — 
Those eyes, those lips, that face — though yet 
unseen. 
So strong a magnet to his thought ; he fears 
No blame for this — as when, in folly's 
years, 
He made heart-idols. Now he museth well : 
No siren lure has bound him in its spell. 

Ah, pray that he may hunger more and more 
To see thy face, this toilsome journey o'er : 
To feast on loveliness can ne'er decay 
Like earthly charms, which fade and pass 
away. 
Next vision of the Godhead One and Trine, 
Heaven's crowning joy is Jesus' face and 
thine. 



148 Argentina 



ARGENTINA 



" npHY colors wave o'er yon fair land, 

Thy virgin white, thy peerless blue : ^ 
As tho' 'twere all at thy command, 

O Queen of heaven — no heart untrue ! 

"And yet thy foes seem masters there — 

Oath-banded in Satanic hate ! 2 
The poor Church groans, condemn'd to 
wear 

The fetters of a godless State ! 

" Thou hast, I know, some loyal sons 
And loving daughters left to mourn 

Religion's plight : and swiftly runs 

The spark of hope 'mid weed and thorn : 



1 The Argentine flag is peculiarly beautiful, being white and blue 
— the tint of blue called " Our Lady's blue." 

2 The government is a Masonic ring, and hampers the Church 
instead of fostering her 5 indeed, it does all it can do to undermine 
and ruin the faith of her people. For Masonry is there in its true 
colors — the sworn foe of the Incarnation and its kingdom. 



Argentina 1 49 

" But feebly burns a fitful fire, 

Where kindled once the faith of Spain 

A beacon for the soul's desire ! . . . 
Ah, might that beacon shine again ! " 



II 

Thus sadly, as I knelt once more 
In this dear land where truth is free. 

My thought went back to Plata's shore 
And spoke a sorrowing heart to thee. 

But thou, sweet Mother, while I heard 
No voice, no whisper soft and low : 

Didst answer make with surer word — 
The mystic hint which gives to know. 

" Hast lost the trust so long was thine — 
Thy trust in Erin's chosen race ? ^ 

Not vainly plann'd my Son's design : 
The present means the future grace. 



1 The Irish colony in the River Plata may well be called the 
hope of the Church there. That " Apostle people " have been sent 
there, I trust, no less than to the United States or to Australia. 



ISO Our Lady's Vanguard 

" And thy Saint Paul hath compass'd well 
A hold on Chili's sister shore.^ 

Despite the subtle wiles of Hell, 

The work shall grow from more to 



OUR LADY'S VANGUARD 

LJIS vigil kept Ignatius before Our Lady's 
shrine ; 

And hung his sword at morning there, irrevoca- 
ble sign 

That her true knight thenceforth was he, tho' 
yet all unbeknown 

The service she would deign accept — her Son's 
will and her own. 

But she, our ever-gracious Queen, prepared him 

well and long 
To prove a soldier of the Cross — a leader calm 

and strong : 

* The Passionlst houses in Chili make a South American Prov- 
ince of the Congregation possible. We hope it will soon become an 
accomplished fact. 



Our Lady's Vanguard 151 

Nor will'd him to go forth alone, but form a 

chosen band 
Of martial spirits like himself, and sworn to his 

command. 

And then a name she gave, to grace their ban- 
ner for all time : 

Sure pledge of victory — a name o'er every 
name sublime : 

The name of Jesus, that dear Son who wages 
constant fight 

r th* Church, His Body mystical, for truth's 
eternal right. 

Soon grew a host this little band — a host that 

took the front. 
To make the vanguard of the Church and bear 

the battle's brunt. 
Then baffled heresy recoil'd, to mourn the 

broken spell 
Of triumph which too long had fed the hungry 

jaws of Hell. 

Anew the great Apostleship of pulpit and of pen 
Put forth its might : for teaching throve, and 
learning lived again. 



152 The Annunciation 

While lands afar, bedarken'd o'er with starless 
pagan night, 

Beheld at last the dawning of the sweet Evan- 
gel's light. 



THE ANNUNCIATION 



T WEEN was never night so fair 

Since Eden held the sinless pair. 
Never the moon so chastely shone, 
The stars so tenderly look'd on. 
I fain would think that naught of ill 
Was done or borne those hallow'd hours 
That firm stood every tempted will 
And baffled Hell's astonish'd powers. 
Nor only where the night had sway, 
But where, beyond it, beam'd the day : 
Through every clime of peopled earth, 
On every land, on every sea. 
There fell a wondrous Sabbath-rest — 
A gather'd year of Jubilee. 
The mother knew a painless birth ; 
The sufferer found unhoped relief; 



The Annunciation 153 

The mourner's heart forgot its grief; 
And sorrow thaw'd the frozen breast. 
And not a soul that wing'd its flight 
Across the darksome bourne of death, 
But timely caught the saving light 
That hung o'er favor'd Nazareth. 

II 

'Neath roof of lowly cottage there 
A maiden kneels in silent prayer. 
A lady she, of David's Hne, 
Though clad in garb of peasant wear : 
And oh, if other maids be fair. 
Her beauty must be call'd divine ! 
'Tis " from within," as sang of old 
Her raptur'd sire, to whom was given 
To see what other bards foretold 
As mystic secrets heard from heaven. 
Not hers the only perfect face. 
Or faultless form, of womankind : 
Nor hers the only noble mind 
Among the queens of Adam's race. 
Yet ne'er shall highest artist guess 
That pure transcendent loveliness 
Whereon the reverent angel gaz'd, 



54 The Annunciation 



When came the voice, " Hail, full of 

grace ! . . ." 
While she look'd up a moment's space. 
And troubled seem'd — but not amazM ! 



Ill 

" Hail, full of grace ! With thee the Lord 
Abideth ever," Gabriel said. 
"Among all women blest art thou." 
But ponder'd she, vi^ith modest brow. 
What might import this sudden word; 
And bent again her beauteous head. 

" Fear naught, O Mary ! Thou hast found 

Such grace with God as none before. 

He v/ills that thou conceive and bear 

A Son, whom Jesus thou shalt call : 

And who shall reign for evermore 

On David's throne ; but kinglier crown'd — 

Son of the Highest, Lord of all." 

He said : and seem'd the very air 

To wait the royal Maid's reply. 

" I pray thee tell how this shall be : 
For vow'd perpetual virgin L" 



The Annunciation 155 

" The Holy One, to whom thy vow. 
Shall with His Spirit o'ershadow thee. 
Inviolate thus shalt thou conceive, 
Inviolate bear, a Son divine. 
And lo, thy cousin Elizabeth, 
Long barren call'd, holds even now 
A son shall three months hence have birth ! 
For with the Lord of heaven and earth 
Is surely done whate'er He saith." 

A moment, such as ne'er had been 

Since reach'd her hand the tempted Eve. . . . 

Made answer then creation's Queen : 

" God's handmaid I : His will is mine." 

IV 

Thus came to us Emmanuel, 

The Word made flesh, God's equal Son : 

The Second of the Three-in-One 

Came down from heav'n with men to dwell. 

And ever since that blessed hour 

This planet sphere — unseen, unknown 

To worlds beyond our system's zone — 

Hath held, I trow, a peerless place 

Among the myriad orbs of space : 



156 The Visitation 

For here hath dwelt the Sovran Power 
Who call'd them forth from primal naught j 
Dwelt member of our mortal race, 
And drawn with us life's fleeting breath ; 
Hath eat and drunk, and tasted sleep ; 
Hath deign'd to smile, to grieve, to weep; 
Ay, even hath stoopt to pain and death — 
Then burst the grave, redemption wrought. 



THE VISITATION 



'npHE Word made flesh — inviolately shrined, 

O House of Gold, in thee — 
He straightway moves thy ever-duteous mind 

To sweetest charity. 

In haste thou settest forth, to hail with joy 

Thy cousin Elizabeth. 
The angel told thee of her unborn boy ; 

And thy rewarded faith 

Would clasp with hers. But little dost thou know, 
As yet, the full design 



The Visitation 157 

Of that mysterious impulse bids thee go — 
A purpose all divine. 

II 

Comes the New Covenant to meet the Old : 

To bring the larger grace, 
The nearer Presence, by the seers foretold 

Of Juda's chosen race. 

And chosen bearer of that Gift art thou ! 

Thy voice of greeting sounds : 
The prophet-babe, regenerate even now, 

Within his prison-bounds 

Leaps, eager witness to the God in thee ; 

The God whose Spirit fills 
Thy cousin too, and gives her words to free 

The awe her bosom thrills. 



Ill 

And we, O Virgin-Mother — we have caught 

Elizabeth's raptur'd strain : 
Link'd with the salutation angel-taught, 

Faith's evermore refrain. 



158 Alma Redemptoris Mater 

We hail thee channel of all grace that flows 
From Jesus' precious Blood ; 

And pray thee meet us in the joys and woes 
Which shape our final good : 

Until, at death, thou glad us with a smile 

Shall bid our spirit sing 
Thine own Magnificat — in peace the while 

Awaiting Christ the King. 



ALMA REDEMPTORIS MATER 1 

''KXT'E hail thee "Fostering Mother." For 
'twas thine, 
O blessed among women, to become 
The life of life's own Lord, while lay His 
home 
Within thy maiden womb's inviolate shrine : 
And when, those sweet months o'er, thou didst 
resign 
Thy Treasure to the world of heathen Rome, 
The Choirs whose carolling fill'd the starry 
dome 
Saw feeding at thy breast the Babe divine ! 

1 The Church's antiphon until the Purification. 



To Our Lady of Prompt Smcor 159 

But art thou not our " Alma Mater '* too ? 
*'^Our life," as holy Church hath bid us say ? 
If Jesus by the Father lives, and we 
By Him,^ still, draw we not that life from 
thee ? 
Ah, nourish it within us — keep us true 

To Him who is alone "the Life, the Way " ! 



TO OUR LADY OF PROMPT 
SUCCOR 

/^NE sang: "Oh, come to me, my love!" 
^^ And I 

Did echo in my heart that song to thee. 
For when, my Queen, thou standest sweetly 
nigh — 

So real a presence that I all but see 

Thy mantle blue, and, bending, seem to kiss 
The soft white feet — I needs must long the 
more 

To have thee always with me. And if this 
Be joy for heav'n, and vainly hoped before, 

1 St. John, vi. 58. 



i6o To Our Lady of Prompt Succor 

Yet true it is thou hast a wondrous way 
Of meeting thy belov'd ones even here : 

As when they take their cross up day by day. 
And forward go in faith and holy fear. 

Ay, since thou earnest once to meet thy Son, 
That part remains thy tender office still : 

For we must make that journey, one by one, 
And thou our Mother art by His dear will. 

So come to me, my Love, with morning's light. 
To help me take my burden for the day ; 

But oh, abide with me till fall of night ! 
And then — to smile all evil things away ! 

Ah, when the hour, the moment, O my Mother, 
Wherein I need thee not? But more in 
some : 
For foes there are which closer press than 
other — 
While thou dost seem afar. Then^ dearest, 
come ! 

Come ever to the rescue, mighty Queen, 
Until thou break upon me, from above, 



Per Mariam iSi 

Thro* death's cold mist, and let thy face be 
seen — 
Those gracious eyes — all-beautiful, my Love ! 



PER MARIAM 



B 



E thou my prayer — by morn, by night. 
And all day long ! 
My soul shall, lark-like, wing her flight. 
On, up, into the perfect light, 
With thee her song. 

To muse upon thy joys, my Queen, 

Is sweet repose : 
But wiser still, for me, I ween. 
To pore on sorrows deep and keen — 

Thy peerless woes. 

Those lovely lips have held their breath 

At madden'd strife : 
Those eyes have wept rejected faith, 
And bravely look'd upon the Death 

That gave us life. 



62 Per Mar tarn 

That Heart, now restful evermore 

In God's own peace, 
Was once thrust through and wounded sore 
A wordless anguish at its core, 

And no surcease. 

Then let thy beauty hold me fast 

In blissful chain : 
A spell shall never break, but last 
Till earth's fond dreams be overpast, 

And naught remain 

But love unblinded, joy all true — 

Unsating feast. 
Yet teach me here to sorrow too — 
To rue the sins which thou didst rue, 

Nor mine the least. 

And teach me, dearest Mother, teach 

My heart to prize 
The science worldlings cannot reach — 
The " folly " martyrs, virgins preach, 

That maketh wise : 

To love the Cross, for His dear sake 
Who on it died : 



Per Mariam 163 

To love it well, and daily take 
My grace-fraught portion, and ofF shake 
All care beside. 

Be thus my prayer, by morn, by night, 

And all day long : 
That so my spirit wing her flight, 
On, up, into the perfect light. 

With thee her song. 



STELLA MATUTINA: OR, A POET'S 
QUEST 



INTRODUCTION 

TVyTY aim in the following poem Is to show 
three things : — 

First^ the need of an ideal womanhood^ not only 
as a model for her own sex, but as an object of 
love and reverence for ours. 

Second^ that this ideal must be a reality^ and 
part of a religious system. 

Third^ that the Catholic and Roman Church, 
as having the only true and divine religion, gives 
us this ideal womanhood. 

I take a representative male of the poetic 
temperament, — one whom Tennyson so truly 
describes as 

" Dower* d with the hate of hate, the scorn of scorn. 
The love of love.** 

Such a being is peculiarly susceptible to the 
influence of woman, whether for good or for 
evil. I suppose him to lose his mother while 
still a boy ; to be brought up in Protestantism, 
167 



1 68 Introduction 

therefore without a Mother Church to guide 
and preserve him in the dangerous years of 
youth. I suppose him to receive a classical 
education, and to come under the spell of the 
heathen mythology with its goddesses ; of 
Homer and Virgil, of Ovid and Horace; to 
which fascination is presently added that of 
Byron and Moore, of Shelley and Keats. What 
wonder that the youth finds the thought of 
woman one which draws him away from the 
Sovereign Good, from the Infinite Beauty, 
which alone can fill his heart ! 

But I suppose him overtaken, on the thresh- 
old of manhood, by a wonderful grace from the 
Divine Mercy. He falls in love with womanly 
purity, and finds it a sacramental influence on 
his life. He begins to realize the truth of the 
noble words which Tennyson puts into the 
mouth of " the blameless King " : — 

** For indeed I knew 
Of no more subtle master under heaven 
Than is the maiden passion for a maid. 
Not only to keep down the base in man. 
But teach high thoughts, and amiable words. 
And love of truth, and all that makes a man." 



Introduction 1 69 

And now his poetic nature idealizes, of course. 
It forms to itself an ideal womanhood. Can he 
find it, woo and wed it ? Ah no ! He soon 
discovers that it is something too high for that. 
His love has become religion. Then Chris- 
tianity, if indeed divine, ought to furnish his 
ideal as an object of religious worship. But 
such Christianity as he has known can never 
give him that ideal. He envies the very pagans 
of Greece and Rome, who had Pallas and Diana 
among their divinities. What is he to do ? 

At this juncture, most happily, he remembers 
that the " Church of Rome " — of whose claim 
to be the only Church he is well aware — is 
accused of having corrupted Christianity with 
rites and cults borrowed from Paganism. So 
he has recourse to this ancient Church ; ques- 
tions her; receives a patient hearing; and finds, 
to his amazement and delight, that she can give 
him his ideal womanhood — only a far higher 
and lovelier one than any which his poetic 
fancy could have formed. He learns that this 

*' Woman above all women glorified. 
Our tainted nature's solitary boast " 



170 Stella Matutina ; or, 

as dear Wordsworth could say, in spite of his 
Protestant prejudices — has a claim on our 
homage as the Mother of God, and on our lov- 
ing confidence as our Mother too ; and, again, 
that he can make her the Queen of his heart, 
the Lady of his love, and consecrate his life to 
her service in the highest form of chivalrous 
devotion. Thus the " Poet's Quest " is ended. 



T GREET thee, sober Autumn of life's year ! 

A heart-felt welcome thankfully I sing. 
Little for me thy wonted look of sere : 
I rather hail thee as a second Spring. 
Thou hast not boyhood's freshness ; dost not 
bring 
Its rose and lily with their virgin hue : 

Yet comest like a breeze of fragrant wing 
From Eden wafted — breathing of a dew 
That falls for evermore where God makes all 
things new.^ 

Ah, Eden ! There's an echo in us all 

To that sad story. Yea, through every clime 

1 Apoc. xxi. 5. 



A Poet's Quest 171 

And age and creed some record of a Fall 
We trace, some legend of a Golden Prime : 
How fondly cherish'd in the lore sublime 
Of Greece and Rome amid the lingering light ! 
The river's course, where most of weeds and 
slime. 
Still here and there has gleams of pure and bright. 
And bursts and weUings up that tell its native 
height. 

'Tis thus, methinks, the individual life 

Looks back to that fair morning of its day 

When cloudless sky and sunny air were rife 
With health and hope that promised no decay : 
When the pure world within us could array 

The world without in such a sweet untruth : 
Ere pass'd our childish innocence away. 

And left us wiser with a poison'd youth — 

Of Eve's forbidden tree the pleasant fruit, in 
sooth. 

And how we dote on childhood ! Dote and 
weep 
With such a tender yearning of regret. 
Would seem some mystic consciousness asleep 



172 Stella Matutina ; or. 

At our soul's core, which may not all forget : 
The hinting of a past we have not met 
On earth, but which can hold us in its spell 
Till the lip quivers and the cheek is wet : 
Some fair, dream-haunting state, where all was 

well : 
Some realm of Lethe-zoned Elysium, whence 
we fell. 

Ay, fell. How clear that lesson from the past, 
Ev'n to the school-boy with his musings wild ! 

And most, I ween, when memory turn'd aghast 
To mourn in vain the bosom undefiled. 
The guiltless loves and longings of the child : 

How then 'twas blessed freedom not to know ; 
And woman sweetliest in the mother smiled. 

And seem'd a swordless angel placed to show 

Where stands the Tree of Life — not that which 
beareth woe. 

II 

But manhood came at last ; and, with it, grace 
And mercy undeserv'd, and timely ruth. 

Again the angel smil'd from woman's face ; 
But now led on thro' pureness unto truth. 



A Poet's Quest 173 

And he that follow'd (deeming it, forsooth, 
No bootless quest, for aught the common mind. 

With wit sarcastic or with jest uncouth, 
Might urge as wisdom) set himself to find 
A fair ideal — for him, the queen of womankind. 

And something he beheld of that he sought, 
In many : much in few : but ah, in none 
The perfect all ! 

Friends, guessing at his thought, 
True-hearted spoke : " Tour prize was never 

won. 
You look too high. We live beneath the sun. 
Frail mortals all and sinful. Nor, indeed. 
Could we be happy for a sennight's run. 
If wedded to perfection — we who need 
The sympathy which chimes with penitential 
creed." 

Then he : " You counsel sagely, but divine 
Amiss. No longer question of a wife. 

But rather of a higher love, is mine — 

If higher you allow." " Ay, higher life^' 
Quoth one — of " Oxford " leanings, and at 
strife 



174 Stella Matutina; or. 

With all the rest — " or life and bride in one. 
Enlist you, then, and march to drum and 

fife! 
Join the brave few who have at last begun 
With Church alone for spouse. It will be nobly 

done ! " 

But here the poet lightly laugh'd, and said : 
"Your pardon, friend. No phantom spouse 
for me ! 
I seek a queen — to worship, not to wed : 
One to be serv'd with purest chivalry." 
" How ! " scofPd the other. " And no phan- 
tom she? 
What mean you ? " " This : that if Christ's 
Faith be true. 
It needs must yield in full reality 
The sweet ideal I have dared pursue. 
Or . . . back to Pagan eld for taste of ' pastures 
new ' ! 

" Yea, better again be Pantheist v/ith the Greek; 

Evolve me a new goddess, to combine 
Each perfect womanly loveliness, and speak 

My priestly vows at her symbolic shrine ! *' 



A Poet's Quest 175 

" Such jest," rejoin'd his monitor, " is sign 
Of levity profane." " Nay, jest afar ! 

A love which is religion . . . this of mine . . . 
Is born of truth, not bred as fancies are. 
Tho' yet unseen the day, I hail the Morning 
Star ! " 

III 

Then turn'd the poet, with all-reverent mind. 
To fields he had been early taught to shun : 
Where poison-flowers (*twas said) perfume the 
wind. 
And musical, but deadly, v/aters run. 
" The old idolatry still lives, my son. 
In those fair-seeming gardens. Ah, beware ! 
A sorceress woos thee with her names of 
'One' 
And ' Catholic ' and ' Holy.' Flee the snare ! 
Ev'n as thy fathers fled to breathe pure Gospel 
air." 

Rear'd in the great Elizabethan Sham, 

His creed had well-nigh dwindled to a 
ghost. . . . 
Now fed with mist of Isis or of Cam, 



176 Stella Matutina ; or. 

Now left to cater for itself and boast 
The right of choosing what it favor'd most 
And tranquilly dispensing with the rest.^ 

Yet like a sentinel he kept his post 
For faith in Christ — the Master highest, best. 
And Blessed Saviour-God of fallen race con- 
fess'd. 

So now unto the old historic Church 

He turn'd him blithely : glad that he had 
heard 
Her unquench'd voice still challenge earnest 
search. 
With claim (no longer to his thirst absurd) 
To teach inerrantly Christ's living Word. 

^ It may sound very harsh to call the Anglican Establishment 
" The great Elizabethan Sham." But truth often is unpleasant. I 
heard the late eminent convert, T. W. Marshall (author of" Chris- 
tian Missions"), remark that "the Established Church of England 
and her daughter in America were the two most respectable shams on 
the face of the earth." Now that an infallible decision from the 
Chair of Peter has forever settled the nullity of Anglican Orders, 
the above fact is more strikingly apparent. 

As to what I call "mist of Isis or of Cam," what else but 
" mist " — or fog, if you prefer it — is the private judgment theology 
of the Anglican clergy ? If the high-church section are doing ser- 
vice now by preaching borrowed dogma, this is something to be 
thankful for indeed. 



A Poet's Quest 177 

" O ancient Church, I hear thee charged," he 

said 
" (A charge, 'twould seem, right learnedly 

preferred). 
With bringing back the worship of the dead. 
And heathen hero-rites — now paid to Saints 

instead." 

But she, with gentle dignity, replied : 

" My child, was never a more foolish lie. 
What are the Saints ? Christ's members glori- 
fied. 
He gives them crowns and sceptres : what 

can I 
But do them fitting homage ? There, on high. 
They share His very throne, and so complete 

The triumph of His own Humanity : 
For doth not each His victory repeat 
Over the rebel hosts that writhe beneath His 
feet ? 

" What arr the Saints ? My sons and daughters, 
borne 
To Christ my Spouse. Dost think them 
gone before 



178 Stella Matiitina ; or. 

To let their Mother toil and weep forlorn, 
Nor rather help and comfort her the more ? 
If I, then, bid my children here implore 
The timely aid of brethren strong in prayer, 
Who watch the vessel from the hard-won 
shore 
And beacon into port — what tongue shall dare 
This cult with impious rites of demon-gods 
compare ? " 

IV 

"Not mine," quoth he. "The charge was 
never mine. 

But hearing now the answer clear and keen, 
Methinks I catch the Master's voice in thine — 

Authoritative, luminous, serene. 

Oh, tell me if the vision I have seen 
Be found among thy daughters throned above ? 

If one be there — my heart's ideal queen — 
Whom I may choose not vainly for my love, 
And chivalrously serve — as thy wise laws ap- 
prove ? " 

" If true as fair the ideal thy fancy paints, 
'Tis real, be sure, in yonder world. But thou 



A Poet's Quest 179 

Within the great communion of Saints 

Must first enroll thee, child, and humbly bow 
To faith's whole teaching." ... " Mother, 
teach me now ! " 

And all his soul went out to her. But she. 
To test him more, made answer : " I allow 

In this request thy full sincerity ; 

But dread some feverM craze of sensuous fantasy. 

"What is this 'vision' thou hast found so 
good - — 

This fond ' ideal ' ? And. whither doth it lead ? 
'Twould seem some type of fairest womanhood. 

Whereof thy youthful poet heart hath need. 

As now it thinks : yet wherefore ? But to 
feed 
Self-worship and a pride forever blind ? 

If so, my child, 'tis outcome of a greed 
That is but sensuality refined. 
The spiritual garb ill veils the carnal mind. 

" Nor may we rest in creatures as an end. 
How pure they be soever. God alone 

Our All-in-all, to Him should ever tend 

The heart's affections — most, if it enthrone 
(His gift acknowledged) an elected One^ 



i8o Stella Matutina ; or, 

As dearest after Him. Then^ like a grace, 
Our love leads upward." 

" Such a love mine own," 
Broke in the poet meekly. " I can trace 
Its dawn within my soul to one sweet woman's 
face — 

" My mother's. Yet, of purity severe, 

That face smiled rarely. To my boyish 
thought. 
When I had lost her, less of love than fear 
Clung round her memory. But my heart had 

caught 
A hunger — that soon grew, and gnaw'd, and 
wrought 
Into my life — for what she would have been : 
For what the years (so seem'd it) must have 
brought : 
A perfect mother, ruling like a queen 
With chaste and gentle sway o'er passion's young 
demesne." 

V 

" Poor child, hadst thou but known ! . . . But 
mothers age, 
However sweet, and pass : sons woo and wed. 



A Poet's Quest i8i 

Comes other love to help man's virtue wage 
The holy war." " To me it came," he said : 
" Alas ! not day's first blush of rosy red ; 

Yet with a promise of baptismal dew, 

To cleanse my spirit from the past, and shed 

A freshness o'er it — not of youth, but new, 

And potent with a pledge of manhood strong 
and true. 

" All this I hoped to find in wedded love ; 

And form'd me an ideal wife. But soon 
My heart became, like Galahad's, ' drawn above,' 
And craved (nor seem'd it rash) a higher 

boon 
Than mortal bride. One summer afternoon, 
I spoke with trusted friends : but all and each 
Or thought me struck with madness from the 
moon. 
Or moping for some charmer out of reach ; 
And so they miss'd the music I had long'd to 
teach. 

" The mother had absorb'd the wife, to form 
My queen-ideal — perfected womanhood : 

No cold abstraction, but a being warm 
With all of deepest love and highest good 



1 82 Stella Matutina ; or. 

In sister, spouse, and mother : one who 
stood 
'Mid joys and sorrows here, and now, in heaven, 
Is crown'd with youth immortal. 

But I would, 

Church, I had known thee sooner ! Have I 

striven. 
All blindly and in vain? Is much to be for- 
given ? " 

"Thy mother, then, this 'vision,' this ' ideal,' 

O poet ! It is well. I see the Hand 
Hath led thee to the threshold of the Real 

By one sure path thy heart could understand. 

Not rash the hope that in the Promised Land 
Thy mother dwells already with the blest ; 

Yet must our lov'd ones pay the full demand 
Of justice ere they enter into rest ; 
And till we kitozu them there, to pray is ever best 

" As mindful of their need. (If need be none. 
Love earns not less requital.) The bright 
names 

1 call upon — my children who have won 

The honors meet which heresy defames — 



A Poet's Quest 183 

Their saintship 'tis the King Himself pro- 
claims 
By proofs infallible. 

But let me show 
This eager soul of thine, which worthily aims 
So high, a 'queen-ideal' thou dost not know — 
A Womanhood that leaves all other far below." 

VI 

As one long absent, who is nearing home 

But off his road, a voice that points the way, 
So heard our poet the kind Church of Rome, 

Since first she spoke, thro' all her patient say. 

And ever, as he listen'd, grew the ray 
Of faith within his mind ; till now it seem'd 

About to brighten into perfect day : 
Only not paled his Morning Star, but beam'd 
A larger loveliness — a joy he had not dream'd ! 

" Give thanks, my son. A precious grace and 
rare 
Hath drawn thee to esteem whate'er is found 
In womanhood most God-like chiefly fair. 
The mother-love, whose tender ways sur- 
round 



184 Stella Matiitina ; or. 

The child, nor less befittingly abound 
When other fails the man — this first compels 

Thy homage ; and, in sooth, 'tis holy ground : 
But need I doubt, for thee, the lily dwells 
In maiden bower — for thee, the virginal charm 
excels ? 

"Thy smile assures me. Thou canst follow, 
then. 

If God, all-wise, has form'd not man alone. 
But woman — as the Spirit-guided pen 

Hath writ — but equally woman, to His own 

Image and likeness, and in her is shown. 
More than in man, parental love divine ; 

Not less thro' virgin woman makes He 
known — 
To eyes of chaster worship, such as thine — 
A pearl of greater price the mother must resign. 

"Now God Himself, while fruitful, virgin is. 

If virgin, then, with mother could unite 
In woman, there were beauty likest His : 

That Womanhood would wear a crown of 
light. 

As ' queen-ideal ' for men and angels' sight. 



A Poet's Quest 185 

And know'st thou not, O poet — hast not 

heard — 
There is a Virgin-Mother ? Has the blight 
Of fatal error, guiltlessly incurred. 
So dull'd thy finer sense to ev*n the Written 

Word ? " 

" Nay, Mistress : I believe in Christ our Lord, 
Born of the Virgin Mary." " Ay, and He ? " 
"The Son of God." "Or God the Son, 
adored 
As Second of the Consubstantial Three ? " 
"Yea, verily." "Then, His Mother . . 
what is she ? 
Mother of God?" " 'Twould seem so." 
" Seem, forsooth ! 
Is here no place for seeming. But to me 
The nebulous half-gospel taught thy youth 
Has long familiar been. Now learn the fuller 
truth." 

VII 

" All ears," he answerM. " But of her, indeed, 
Sweet thoughts would come in boyhood : as at 
times, 



1 86 Stella Matutina ; or, 

With lesson from Saint Luke, or say of Creed : 
Oftener when peal'd the merry Christmas 

chimes, 
And Bethlehem's tale in carols, pictures, 
rhymes. 
Took clearer shape. But soon wiseacres said 

That none, O Church, of all thy many crimes, 
Surpass'd the idolatrous worship madly paid 
To heathen goddess fused with Nazareth's lowly 
Maid. 

" Erst Cybele ' mother of the gods,' 'twas now 
Mary the ' Mother of God.' " 

" Ay, ay, my child : 

And sorry dupes were they. No more so thou. 

Through His dear mercy who, an Infant, 

smiled 
On Christmas morn to Mother undefiled, 
God born in time : born to destroy the crew 
Of demon-godships with their orgies wild : 
Born to set up a worship pure and true — 
A kingdom rich for all in treasures ' old and 
new.' 

" Of treasures old how bountiful a store 

From Moses to the Prophets ! Light to light 



A Poet's Quest 187 

Succeeding : endless mines of golden lore : 
And heav'n-taught poesy's sublimest flight. 
But those who scan the sacred page aright 

Will find the promised Woman with her Seed 
Prefigur'd o'er and o'er to mystic sight. 

Fathers and doctors mine have lov'd to feed 

Their contemplation thus ... as, haply, thou 
shalt read 

" In luminous tomes ere long. 

Of treasures new 
Still ampler store have I : nor letter'd page 
Alone : for here is equal honor due 

The Word Unwrit, which flows from age to 

age 
(And shall to the last, for all that Hell may 
rage) 
Inviolate, Apostolical, Divine. 

But whosoe'er would hear it, and assuage 
His thirst for truth, must docile ear incline 
To one unchanging Voice — one only . . . 
which is mine. 

« But gift of gifts the King Himself, the ' Word 
Made Flesh ' to ' dwell among us,' evermore : 



1 88 Stella Matutina; or, 

' Emmanuel, God with us.' (Thou hast heard 
How well His martyr-prophet sang of yore ?) ^ 
And next, the Virgin who conceiv'd and 
bore 
Is precious to my love. Through her alone 

He came to us. Elected from before 
All ages she, and form'd His ownest own : 
His Covenant's spotless Ark, His Wisdom's 
Mercy-Throne." 



VIII 

" Ah me ! " the poet murmur'd, full of awe : 
" I scarce may smile. For while, no longer 
blind, 
I see a fairer Eve than Milton saw — 
The veritable Queen of womankind ; 
Yet dare I venture with presumptuous mind 
To more than fondly worship from afar ? 
And tho' in serving her I needs must 
find 
Exceeding joy, one missing note will mar 
The hoped-for harmony — one brightness leave 
the Star ! 

1 Is. vii. 14. 



A Poet's Quest 189 

" My Queen, my Lady, she : but not my Mother ! 
God's Mother — never mine ! " 

" Still blind, then, thou ! 
For prithee, is not Christ our first-born Brother ? 
His Father not our Father ? Tell me, how 
Are we His brethren — as Saint John saith, 
' now 
The sons of God ' ^ — yet may not claim withal 
His Mother for our own ? Ah, gladden'd 
brow ! 
I see that tender brightness o'er thee fall 
Thou fearedest gone : her light whom we too 
love to call 

"The 'Stella Matutina.' 

Come with me 
To Bethlehem's stable-cave. And while we 
bend 
In loving homage to the Blessed Three — 
The Babe, His Virgin-Mother, and the Friend 
So tried and true, in whom the honors blend 
Of spouse and father — take thy rightful 
place 
Where Jesus lies : and show me to what end 

^ I John, iii. a. 



190 Stella Matutina; or, 

Art thou His brother — by adoption's grace 
Co-heir, as saith Saint Paul, to sufter a brief 
space, 

" And then to reign in glory — if for thee 
Mary and Joseph no such office share 

As here for Him ? If born in Him, and He 
Not less in thee, thou needest all the care 
Of that sweet Mother with her wealth of 
prayer 

To have the Christ-life in thee thrive and grow." 
" But how," exclaim'd the poet, " may I dare 

Believe that she can love a thing so low. 

Or prize what my poor heart must tremblingly 
bestow ? " 

" Thine a most natural wonder," said the Church, 

" At what, in sooth, nigh takes a mortal's 
breath. 
But one thing baffles more our deepest search : 

How He could love us even unto death ? 

Yet of all mysteries none so dear to faith. 
So, let us now to Calvary — to ' the mount 

Of myrrh, the hill of frankincense,' as saith 
Th' enamour'd Spouse. On that perennial fount 
Of hope, a tale will I, to thee still new, recount." 



A Poet's Quest 191 

IX 

" Still new ! Have I not connM it o'er and 
o'er ? " 
"I doubt not thou hast ponder'd it," she 
said, 
" As page of that half-gospel now no more. 
But tell me : whensoever thou hast read 
Or listen'd — though the Saviour's Wounds 
have bled 
In thy mind's picture, and each dying word 
Made lingering echoes, till the thorn-crown'd 
head 
Droopt Hfeless — hath not one thing thou hast 

heard. 
One utterance of the seven, seem'd out of place, 
and stirr'd 

" No answering pulse, as meaningless to thee ? 

' Behold thy Mother! ' spake the lips divine — 
To that beloved One in whom we see 

The nascent Church. Would Jesus but 
consign 

To filial care, as heretics opine. 
This Queen of virgins, this Immaculate Eve ? 

Or did He give her to be mine and thine — 



192 Stella Matutina ; or, 

As 1 and mine know^ rather than believe, 
From sweet innumerous proofs that never can 
deceive ? 

" What ! Silent ? Nay, that tear is eloquent 
Where speech would failj and merits that I 
show 
Why stands she there with bosom pierced and 
rent — 
Why has not death forestall'd the cruel woe. 
Alas, the new Eve, like the old, must know 
Full partnership in sorrow with her Lord ! 
In anguish bringing forth : each mother- 
throe 
United with His Passion : hers the Sword, 
As His the Cross : that so they work with one 
accord 

" Redemption's plan. And He, thy King and 
Brother, 
With love*s true thought hath waited for this 
hour 
To make her doubly, by His gift, thy Mother : 
That never mayst thou doubt her tender 
power 



A Poefs Quest 193 

With His rich mercy ; nor her own Heart's 
dower 
Of perfect love, which brims and overflows 

For His dear sake. In her the very ' Tower 
Of David * thou shalt find against thy foes : 
Nor less the ' Enclosed Garden ' of a blest 
repose. 

" But ah, how many dare reject this gift 
Of Mary — knowing better than the King 

His honor and their need! One day to lift 
Sad eyes to Him in vain ! Imagining 
Her mediation such a worthless thing ! 

Is He, then, less our God because our Brother — 
Our Judge because our Saviour ? Can we 
cling 

Too trustfully to her, our common Mother, 

Whose prayer His mercy holds more surely 
than all other ? " 



" Eureka ! " cried the poet. " She is mine ! 
My quest is o'er. I knew 'twas not a 
dream. 
But is it twilight yet ? Or why doth shine 



194 Stella Matutina ; or. 

My Morning Star with still increasing 

beam ? " 
'' Not day, my child. We walk by twilight's 
gleam 
While pilgrims here. The Vision will be day : 

The Vision Beatific, where the Stream 
Of Life hath source — though not so far away 
But heav'n-sent breezes waft us drops of the 
crystal spray. 

" But fear not for thy Star when day shall 
reign ; 

For where her Son is King, there Queen is 
she : 
And thou shalt know thou hast not lov'd in vain 

The fairest fair of creatures that can be. 

The peerless beauty thou dost yearn to see 
Is there ev'n now — assumed to Jesus' side. 

Conceiv'd Immaculate, and wholly free 
From sin's inheritance, she had not died 
Save to enhance Humility's triumph over Pride.'* 

" Then I may take her for my own heart's 
Queen — 
My creature love of loves ! Nor need I pray 



A Poet's Quest 195 

For grace preventive, lest she come between 
My soul and God, alluring it astray — 
As 'tis with earth-born passions of a day. 
But will she make my Saviour less to me — 
As grave-faced teachers of my youth would 
say ? " 
" Not less, but more. What teacher can there 

be 
Of Jesus' love like her through whom He 
came to thee ? 

" What bond so safe, so tender, could unite 
His Heart with thine ? The more thou 
lovest her, 
The dearer groweth He — known, lov'd aright : 
For she the Way to Him where none can 

err, 
Th' Immaculate Way He did Himself 
prefer 
To every other when He came from heav'n. 
' Hail, full of grace ! ' said then His messen- 
ger 
(A chosen Prince from out the Presence Seven ) : 
' With thee the Lord,* said he — while yet 
unask'd, ungiven 



196 Stella Matiitina ; or, 

" The virginal consent that saved mankind. 

If then so full of grace, vi^hat now the store ? 
If with her then our God, where seek and 
find 
So surely now . . . her Son for evermore ? 
Thou thinkest thou hast known thy Lord 
before. 
And prov'd His sweetness. Taste again, and 
see. 
A new wine waits in cup that runneth o*er, 
And Food of angels — all prepared for thee. 
Who bids thee to the feast ? Thy Mother — 
it is she ! " 



XI 

Thrice blessed hour that gave him " Welcome 
Home" 
(Of all remembered moments dearer none) ! 
When knelt the poet to sweet Mistress Rome, 
His new faith learnt, his anxious journey 

done. 
For him a fresh existence had begun : 
He seem'd to stand on some enchanted shore. 
Where life had other meanings than the one 



A Poet's Quest 197 

So thought-confusing he had known before, 
And bred a sense of peace that grew from more 
to more. 

He read again the pages lov'd of old, 

The Sacred Volume — now indeed divine. 
Oh, how harmonious now the tale they told ! 
With what clear depths he saw the waters 

shine ! 
And ever through them, to his raptur'd eyne, 
Look'd queenfully the mirrrr*d Star of Morn — 
Since first, o'er sad farewells of palm and 
pine. 
She rose on forfeit Eden's pair forlorn. 
To when, 'mid angels' song, the Saviour-Child 
was born. 

How new seem'd Bethlehem's story ! Newer 
still 
The lore that crowns more favor'd Nazareth — 
Where, at the " Fiat " of His Handmaid's will, 
Th' Incomprehensible took bonds of breath ! 
And, after, " subject " dwelt, the Evangel 
saith. 
To Mary and to Joseph — yet their God ! 



198 Stella Matutina ; or. 

Born to " become obedient unto death," 
Ev*n then, in that dear home, the path He trod 
Which led to Golgotha's Blood-consecrated sod ! 

" For me, then, this obedience j and for me 

The pattern, first and last ! " the poet cried. 
" In the soul's Nazareth let me dwell with thee, 

O Blessed Mother ! Keep me by thy side. 

And since I must, like Him, be crucified. 
Come with me as I bear my cross, and take 

The place where thou didst stand when Jesus 
died. 
' To me to live is Christ,' so thou but make 
My rescued years thy care and guard them for 
His sake." 

Our Lady smiled ; and gently led him on 
Up to an altar, where a bride, arrayed 
In spotless white — Saint Joseph and Saint 
John 
On either hand — was waiting. Then she 

said : 
"If thou dost love me, prove it undismay'd. 
Receive my daughter for thy sister-spouse — 
Herself a virgin-mother. Thou hast pray'd 



A Poet's Quest 199 

To serve me with thy life. Here plight thy 

vows. 
And trust me for the wreath shall grace my 

poet's brows." 

XII 

A dream, yet not a dream. The Gates of 
Faith 
Had open'd on a Temple old and vast, 
Where naught unreal may bide — though many 
a wraith 
Of fond illusion, soon or late out-cast, 
Doth haunt the entrance. 

As the poet passM 

From court to court, he ask'd the Temple's 

name. 

But she who led him spoke not, till, at last — 

The Bridal Group ! And then, for answer, 

came 
Only the light which glowM in the altar's rosy 
flame. 

The Temple of Vocation ! Sore afraid, 

He would have fled j but met that smile, and 
heard 



200 Stella Matutina; or, 

" If thou dost love me, prove it undismayM." 
How eagerly he drank each gracious word, 
That glowM like wine within the soul it 
stirrM 
To holy daring ! " Yes, my Queen — for 
thee ! 
Full well thou knowest how thy servant 
errM 
In pardonM years. But be it far from me 
To doubt that, knowing this, my surety thou 
wilt be." 

The Bride ... no child of heresy and schism ; 

No phantom, like the one refused with scorn ; 
But she whom gift of Pentecostal Chrism 

With fadeless youth and beauty did adorn : 

Christ's Sister-Spouse — of His own Heart- 
wound born 
And Mary's Dolors. But her face unveil'd. 

While learning from her of his Star of Morn, 
The poet had not seen. Not strange he fail'd 
To guess its music then, nor rapturously hail'd 

A hidden loveliness of blended youth 

And chastity and wisdom with the peace 



A Poet's Quest 201 

Which ever tends the majesty of Truth : 
But, gazing now, he felt all tremor cease ; 
Nor now, I ween, had welcomed a release 

From such espousals. And Our Lady's face. 
At every stolen glance, did so increase 

His love for her and trust in God's dear grace. 

He thought no more of self — still fickle, weak, 
and base. 

So gave the Church her hand. Her angel clad 
Our poet with the Priesthood which is Christ. 

The taken Cross, he bears it ever glad ; 

For his the portion which his Lord sufficed : 
And spurns what worldlings covet, unenticed 

Toward woes to be by fleeting joys that are ; 
For his the joys not fleeting, gains unpriced : 

While — sweetly, calmly mirror'd from afar — 

Within his deepest soul shines on . . . the 
Morning Star. 

Vina del Mar, Chili, 
1888. 



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